US-backed offensives have disrupted Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror training for Southeast Asian militants, prompting them to constantly change camps and delaying the arrival of a batch of Indonesian recruits, a Philippine government report says.
The southern Philippine strongholds of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have harbored most of the training, which began in mid-1998, the report said, but the MILF last year began to pressure the al-Qaeda-linked foreign trainers to move away, apparently to avoid anti-terrorist offensives.
Western nations have been concerned about the training in the Mindanao region, which helped buffer the loss of terrorist training grounds in Afghanistan and continue to produce dangerous militants capable of striking anywhere.
The US military has been providing training and weapons to Philippine troops. It has also conducted covert surveillance missions across Mindanao, military officials say.
Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for deadly bombings across Southeast Asia, including the deadly 2002 Bali attacks. The MILF, engaged in peace talks with Manila, has repeatedly denied persistent military reports linking them to the Indonesian-based group.
The MILF's late founder, Hashim Salamat, forged an agreement in the mid-1990s with Indonesian friends who led Jemaah Islamiyah to set up a training camp in Mindanao, principally for new Indonesian recruits, the report said.
"They were allowed to set up training camps under MILF protection, replicating the Afghan camp system ... transferring deadly skills to a new generation of operatives," the report said.
Jemaah Islamiyah militants designed an 18-month "cadetship training program" exclusively for 17 to 18 Indonesian recruits at a time, the report said.
The first batch attended at a camp called Hudeibah in an MILF stronghold, starting in mid-1998 and ending in February 2000, the report said. Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual head of the Jemaah Islamiyah, attended the graduation ceremony, the report said.
Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, and fellow militant Ali Ghufron, known as Mukhlas, were among the Indonesian instructors, the report said. Both have been captured.
The next batch of Indonesian recruits arrived in 2000, but their training was disrupted by a major military offensive on the MILF's main Camp Abubakar, forcing them to transfer to the Muaskar Jabal Quba camp on Mt. Kararao. A third batch arrived in August 2002, completing their course in February 2003, the report said.
A fourth batch has not arrived because of military assaults, the report said, citing revelations from arrested Indonesian militants.
"The holding of training courses by the JI at this time, even in far-flung or swampy areas, would almost be improbable owing to government offensive threat," it said.
Members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group and the MILF, as well as occasional recruits from Malaysia and Singapore, have also received short courses but have been disrupted by assaults, too, it said.
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