Thu, Apr 08, 2004 page5

• Freed hostage tells of Abu Sayyaf training hideaway

  • AP
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  Indonesian Islamic militants taught dozens of Abu Sayyaf recruits how to make bombs that could be set off by mobile phones and other terror skills while dodging helicopters and troops in a jungle camp last year, a former hostage says.

  About 40 men completed the bomb-making course and a 60-strong batch was taught sniping and combat techniques from late 2002 to the middle of 2003 by the two unidentified Indonesians, who officials believed were members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, longtime hostage Roland Ulah said.

  Other former hostages disclosed seeing two Arab nationals who met Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and stayed with the guerrillas for about a month in 2001 on southern Basilan island, where the rebels had a strong presence until they were crippled and displaced by US-backed assaults.

  The witness accounts by Ulah, 44, and other ex-hostages interviewed on Monday provide a glimpse into clandestine terror training by suspected Jemaah Islamiyah militants and their links to Filipino rebels in the southern Philippines, home to this predominantly Roman Catholic nation's Muslim minority.

  "They were taught sniping, combat, taekwando and dismantling bombs and making bombs that could be set off using cell phones and alarm clocks," said Ulah, who escaped from the Abu Sayyaf last June after more than three years of jungle captivity on southern Jolo island.

  The training started with a dawn jog capped by an Arabic reading of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, and prayers led by the Indonesians, who spoke a smattering of Tagalog, English and Arabic. Their yells of "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great, echoed through the jungle as they trained, Ulah said.

  The Indonesians taught the young guerrillas, mostly recruits from Jolo and the nearby island of Basilan, how to safely open mortar rounds or unexploded bombs dropped by Philippine air force planes then picked up by villagers, who sold them to the rebels. The explosives could be rigged as timed bombs or their powder could be used to make separate bombs, he said.

  Breaking into smaller groups, the recruits were taught how to make bombs that could be remotely detonated using mobile phones or alarm clocks. Such bombs, made using soldering irons and other electrical equipment, were detonated in the jungle, he said.

  The recruits were taught to use the locally available M16 and M14 rifles as well as the grenade-firing M203, aiming at red targets on trees, he said. The training occasionally was disrupted by approaching troops.

  "Sometimes a Sikorsky [helicopter] would fly over and everybody would run for cover to avoid being seen. After it passed, they would resume training again," Ulah said.

  The training, mostly at an encampment on Mount Buod Bagsak, in Jolo's coastal town of Patikul, was witnessed by three other former captives, including a sailor who escaped last year and told military interrogators the trainers were fellow Indonesians.

  Janjalani left Jolo aboard boats with the two Indonesians and about 40 of the newly trained guerrillas a month before he escaped, Ulah said. The military, sometimes helped by U.S. surveillance planes, has been hunting Janjalani since then, officials said.

  Jemaah Islamiyah also has been suspected of links with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
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