A regional terror group linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network may have helped carry out a bombing at a wharf in this southern Philippine city last Wednesday that killed 16 people and wounded 55, the head of Philippine police intelligence said today. Two Indonesian members of the group, Jemaah Islamiah, are suspected of playing a role in the explosion, which occurred just after a ferry had docked and passengers were stepping ashore, said Robert Delfin, intelligence chief of the Philippine National Police. Also today, authorities arrested two Philippine men in connection with the attack, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said at a military ceremony in Manila. The two were identified as Ismael Acmad, also known as Toto, the alleged planner, and an accomplice, Tahome Urong, also known as Sermin Tohami. They belong to the Special Operations Group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim insurgency in the Philippines, military intelligence officials said. An MILF spokesman, Eid Kabalu, said the two men were not MILF members, but instead were pump boat operators forced into confessing that they belonged to MILF. Full Story
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