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Canada, Australia shut Manila embassies amid terror threats 11/29/2002 Associated Press SYDNEY, Australia - New fears of terrorism swept parts of Asia on Thursday when security guards were posted at Sydney's Opera House, and Australia and Canada shut down their embassies in Manila, citing specific threats of Muslim extremist attacks, possibly within days. Both governments strongly warned their citizens to stay away from the Philippines, hit by violence by militant groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. In Manila, armed police closed streets, set up barricades and encircled the Australian Embassy. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra...

THE Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has targeted northern Australia to form part of an Asian Islamic superstate, according to a secret intelligence report. The report, to be detailed on tonight's ABC Four Corners program, comes from the Philippines, chosen by al-Qaeda as its first base in South-East Asia in 1988. Philippines' national security adviser Roilo Golez told Four Corners intelligence indicated Australia was part of al-Qaeda's plan for an Asian Islamic state. "That is something that your intelligence people would have to assess. Suffice it to say that the Jemaah Islamiah vision of a pan-Islamic state includes parts...

ZAMBOANGA: Three Abu Sayyaf gunmen and a soldier were killed after the military raided one of the Muslim rebels' hideouts on the southern Philippine island of Basilan, an official said on Tuesday. Troops attacked an Abu Sayyaf camp on Mount Pamatsakin near the town of Sumisip on Monday, triggering the fighting that led to the four deaths, Basilan Army chief Colonel Bonifacio Ramos said. "Three rebels were killed, but unfortunately one of my soldiers was also slain in the fighting," Ramos said. A government militiaman was also wounded in the clash, but is said to be out of danger. The...

PATIKUL, Philippines (August 21, 2002 6:54 a.m. EDT) - Suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas staged their first kidnappings since U.S. troops arrived to back a crackdown on the group, abducting at least six people who were selling Avon cosmetics door to door in a remote village. Philippine troops responded by shelling suspected hideouts of the gang, which has been linked to al-Qaida. U.S. troops began aiding the crackdown against the Abu Sayyaf early this year after a mass kidnapping in May 2001 that included three American captives. Jolo police chief Col. Ahiron Ajirimi said two men with pistols stopped a vehicle...

<p>President Franklin D. Roosevelt deliberately stranded 7,000 American civilians in the Philippines and other United States territories, using them as "bait" to draw the Japanese into a war with the U.S. in December 1941, a federal class-action suit asserts.</p> <p>The suit was filed Monday in a federal court in Washington. Among the nearly 600 plaintiffs is Collinsville resident Evelyn Greaves, 72. Greaves, who was 12 when the war broke out, spent 37 months with her parents in a Japanese prison camp.</p>

Philippines: U.S. Exercises May Lead To Regional Base25 April 2002 Summary U.S. military engineers are developing infrastructure in the southern Philippines as part of the joint U.S.-Filipino "Balikatan" training exercises. Although the U.S. operations are ostensibly aimed at the Islamic Abu Sayyaf militant group, Washington is likely looking beyond the southern Philippines in the war against terrorism. As U.S. engineers reconstruct roads and airstrips on rebel-infested Basilan Island, the United States may be preparing a forward base there for future regional counterterrorism strikes. Analysis Military engineers from the U.S. Naval Construction Task Group -- commonly referred to as Seabees...