Eight members of terrorist sleeper cell in MM surrender

By Ronron
May 15, 2007

Eight members of a terrorist sleeper cell in Metro Manila surrendered to Army troopers last May 1 after they were convinced to return to the folds of the law, a top military commander disclosed Tuesday.

In a phone interview, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ben Dolorfino, chief of the Armed Forces National Capital Region Command (NCRCom), said the surrender of the former members of a Moslem secessionist group is indeed the “most valuable result of the urban deployment” of military troops.

“At first, they approached our team in Tondo last March, and then in the course of the dialogue, their surrender was realized. They turned over their firearms last May 1 at the NCRCom headquarters (in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City),” Dolorfino said.

The military deployed some 260 personnel to urban poor and Moslem communities in the cities of Quezon, Caloocan, Manila and Taguig since November last year to carry out civic-military operations in support of the Armed Forces’ anti-insurgency campaign.

The troops were pulled out and brought back to barracks a few days before the May 14 elections, amid criticisms and allegations that they were used to campaign for administration-allied candidates and were violating the civil liberties of ordinary Filipinos.

Dolorfino said the successful surrender of the eight Moslems who are natives of Mindanao can be considered indeed as “a result of our team’s effort in Tondo in the course of our interaction with civilians there.”

The leadership of the Armed Forces had earlier boasted that aside from winning the hearts and minds of the depressed communities where the soldiers were deployed in the last six months, the military was able to complete eight engineering projects like day care centers that they left to the people.

Dolorfino refused to identify the eight and the “secessionist group” they used to be long to so as not to jeopardize follow-up operations the military is conducting based on the “valuable intelligence information” they gave.

He only described them all as adult males, with age ranging from 30 to 40, and living in Isla Puting Bato in Tondo since 1996.

“They were planted here (in Metro Manila) in 1996 probably to pursue the plans of the secessionist group. But through the years, they were involved in terrorist activities. They actually admitted that they have knowledge about the Valentine’s Day bombing (in 2004),” Dolorfino said.

He said the group did not admit to have been trained by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian cell of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, in making bombs but confessed nonetheless that they are capable of preparing bombs, being members of a 38-man Special Operations Group (SOG) of a terrorist sleeper cell.

“They have given valuable information to us (about other terrorists in Metro Manila) that we are now pursuing,” Dolorfno said.

But the military commander said there are no standing criminal charges in court against the eight that’s why they were allowed to take part in the Balik-Baril Program where they earned P58,000 in exchange for the baby armalite, Springfield rifle, Thompson sub-machine gun, grenade, three caliber 45, two caliber 38 pistols and one home-made shotgun they surrendered.

The group did not surrender any bomb-making device nor did they reveal plans of bombing in the capital in the immediate future, Dolorfino said.

As members of a sleeper cell, Dolorfino said the eight just went about their daily lives in Metro Manila since 1996 the normal way like having their own regular or irregular jobs unless ordered to carry out a mission.

“Sleeper cells just conduct terrorism when they receive instructions and financial support. That’s how they work,” Dolorfino explained.

At present, the eight are being trained by the military to repair cellular phones in preparation for their return to the mainstream community. “This is part of their process in going back to the folds of the law… We want them to have their own livelihood,” said Dolorfino.

Several suspected terrorist bombers have been arrested in the outskirts of Metro Manila since the 2004 Valentine’s day bombings in Makati City, General Santos City and Davao City./DMS