Posted on 04/21/2002 6:24:54 PM PDT by snippy_about_it
ZAMBOANGA (Reuters) - A man claiming to represent Muslim guerrillas linked to al Qaeda said his group was responsible for Sunday's bombing in the southern Philippines that killed 14 people and blamed the U.S. military presence for the attack.
"What happened yesterday was only a warm up," Abu Muslim al Ghazi said in an interview on local RMN radio on Monday.
Al Ghazi identified himself as a regional operations commander of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas whom the United States has linked to the Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
Asked what the government should do so that his group would stop the bombings, al-Ghazi said: "There is only one thing the government can do. Do not give problems to Muslims in Mindanao."
"We know what the president of the Philippines has recommended to the president of the United States. We have seen what is the plan in the mind of (Philippine President) Gloria (Macapagal Arroyo) and so we anticipated what Gloria would do to eliminate us Muslims in Mindanao."
U.S. special forces are currently holding counter terrorism exercises on southern Basilan island to train Filipino soldiers in fighting the Abu Sayyaf. Officials of both countries have said the exercises were aimed at eliminating the guerrilla group which has been holding a U.S. missionary couple hostage for almost 11 months. Dozens of civilians were wounded when two home-made bombs exploded in the southern city of General Santos, some 215 miles east of Basilan, the Abu Sayyaf's island stronghold.
Islam is a religion of peace. TM
Either I'm doing something wrong, or my FR search engine just doesn't work. I searched (sorted) by date, and nothing turned up. I've been double posting all week.....grrrrr
Don't worry about it. I usually don't post at all except on slow days when I have a chance to cut and paste before the next person!
Because nothing has been done to stop the bombings in Israel we can all expect to see these types of attacks for a long time to come.
Looks like there's no shortage of that, though.
Imal
(But will they pray to a glowing crater?)
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