Posted on 03/21/2003 4:19:53 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Manila holds 10 Iraqis after sleeper cells found
By John O'Callaghan
MANILA, March 21 (Reuters) - Philippine officials said on Friday the discovery of Iraqi sleeper cells had led to the arrest of 11 people over possible links to an expelled Iraqi diplomat accused of having ties to Muslim rebels.
Philippine security forces are on high alert for attacks in retaliation for the U.S.-led war against Iraq that started on Thursday.
The Philippines is seen as a possible target because of its support for the war and because the United States has trained Philippine troops to fight Islamic and communist rebels.
The Bureau of Immigration said on Friday it had detained 10 Iraqis and a Saudi Arabian this week, mostly for visa violations. They cannot be deported until police decide whether charges should be filed.
"Investigations have led to the discovery of a network of Iraqi sleeper cells in the country which resulted in the arrest of the suspects," the bureau said in a statement.
Neither the bureau nor police officials elaborated.
"We are looking into their alleged links with the expelled diplomat," a senior police source told reporters. "These contacts with various Iraqi nationals were never about business."
Manila said Husham Husain, a second secretary at the Iraqi embassy, was told to leave in mid-February after intelligence officers traced mobile phone calls from Abu Sayyaf rebels to the diplomat immediately after a bombing in October.
The blast on the southern island of Mindanao killed a U.S. soldier and three Filipinos.
The Iraqi embassy denied Husain was involved with the Abu Sayyaf, a kidnap gang blacklisted by Washington as a "terrorist organisation" with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
General Hermogenes Ebdane, chief of the Philippine National Police, told reporters the presence of the Iraqis was a "concern because of the capability of the terrorist organisation al Qaeda, who have some sort of an alliance with the leadership in Iraq."
SAUDI SUSPECTED IN MANILA BLAST
Senior police sources said the Saudi Arabian was a suspect in the 1991 bombing of the Thomas Jefferson Center, a library in central Manila run by the U.S. embassy, and was also being questioned about links to a suspected Indonesian militant.
The immigration bureau said the men were arrested on the main island of Luzon and on Mindanao, the scene of decades of violence by several rebel groups seeking an Islamic homeland in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country.
One of the Iraqis was implicated in the 1989 kidnapping of a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, the bureau said.
"The police will be making their report and deciding on what action will be taken," an aide to Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo told Reuters.
"Before we deport them, we will have to ask for clearance from the police, the courts and the National Bureau of Investigation."
After the 1991 blast at the Thomas Jefferson Center, which killed one of the bombers, Manila ordered the Iraqi embassy's first secretary to leave over his alleged links to the suspects.
The attack came five months after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and triggered the Gulf War.
(With reporting by Pedro Uchi)
Well, congratualions are in order to John for finding the sleeper cells all by himself!
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