The Dulmatin-JI-ASG Puzzle. Cui bono?

The Dulmatin-JI-ASG Puzzle. Cui bono?
By Erick San Juan

Every time an incredible news floated, speculations and a lot of questions will arise. Take the “Dulmatin, still alive Marine chief says” story. Imagine, after two years that we never heard from this most wanted terrorist and then suddenly, the “authorities” will say that Dulmatin is still alive. This recent news was picked up (or parroted) by different news agencies worldwide. Is he the Osama bin Laden, Jr. in the making? That, whenever and wherever convenient, his handlers will "release" him and surely will cause fear and tension in the process.

Such "resurrection" will add fire to the almost extinguished “war on terror”. After that failed bombing of the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit by the “underwear bomber”, the suicide bombing at the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan that killed some CIA contractors ,and the recent audio message of bin Laden, what’s next? Is there some sort of fine tuning to the recent US President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address and that the fight against Al Qaeda is still on the White House agenda?

Dulmatin is an Indonesian-born terrorist, nicknamed “Genius” and got his training from Azahari Husin in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and eventually became an electronics specialist and bomb-making expert. He was known to be one of the masterminds behind the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed more than 200 people including seven US citizens and 88 Australians. Being the senior member and sometimes tagged as the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian associate of al-Qaeda, Dulmatin could be a good script for this new wave of the “war on terror” in this region.

Going back to that military raid of Dulmatin’s hideout in January 31, 2008 – it was reported that Dulmatin was severely wounded together with Umar Patek. But the two escaped and later, with the help of the captured turned informant Abu Sayyaf rebel, Alpha Moha led the soldiers to a shallow grave where Dulmatin’s supposed body was buried. This was in February 19, 2008, where the soldiers unearthed Dulmatin’s remains and took samples for DNA testing. Forensic experts from Australia also helped the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the local PNP to verify the tissue samples. Months have passed and no official report was given by the so-called foreign forensic experts. After two years, the authorities declared that the DNA test result was inconclusive. FBI and Australian forensic experts came out with an uncertain and unconvincing DNA test result. That’s incredibly amazing!

Another coincidence was the alleged abduction of two Chinese-Malaysian by members of the Abu Sayyaf group led by Albader Parad in Malaysia and were brought to the southern part of the country. This abduction by the Abu Sayyaf and the police report of Dulmatin being seen “roaming the jungles of Sulu” were quite obvious. One can’t help but conclude that this is another pretext of fear mongering and a bigger scenario is in the offing.

This can be classified as state sponsored terrorism. The big question is – who is orchestrating all these events? Is Dulmatin, the Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf Group, patsy in this scenario? Who will benefit from this? It's sad that our local law enforcers seem helpless and even relying from their foreign counterparts to give them the needed data to avert and apprehend these bandits. Our alert intelligence operatives believe that some of the so called terrorists are actually "assets" or paid recruits by foreign contractors. We even got the feedback that the "new ASG recruits" are trained and deployed in some parts of Asia to sow chaos.
Our government should be wary about this scheme. The Filipinos, especially our brother Muslims will be suspected and blamed again if such spillover plot crop up. For sure, if that will happen our OFW,s and Filipino travellers will have a hard time entering any port of entry.
Remember – “For every terrorist and terrorist group in the field, an extensive bureaucratic support system is necessary.” And “… that terrorism is therefore an activity which is controlled by a faction of government, probably acting under the influence of financier factions, which are generally the ultimate source of authority in the globalized universe.” (9/11: The Synthetic Terror by Webster Tarpley)

We are entering the crucial weeks before the May 10 elections, let us all be vigilant and pray harder to achieve a peaceful election. God help our country!