| Osama gave funds to Abu Sayyaf:
Manila MANILA -- Philippine Defence
Secretary Orlando Mercado said international terrorist Osama bin Laden has provided funds
to Muslim extremists holding more than a dozen hostages in the southern Philippines.
Mr Mercado said he could not
detail military information on the link between Osama and the Abu Sayyaf group, but
remarked that ""in recent years, they had been receiving funds''.
He added that the Abu Sayyaf
had been ""boasting'' of their connection with Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi
dissident living in Afghanistan and wanted by the United States for masterminding a
terrorist attack on two US embassies in east Africa in 1998 which killed 224 people.
Mr Mercado was reacting to a
report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper yesterday, quoting a former member of
the Abu Sayyaf group as saying that Bin Laden and his brother-in-law Mohammad Jamal
Khalifa had set up the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) in 1992 only to
serve as a front for funding extremist groups.
The Abu Sayyaf member,
identified only as Abu Anzar, said the IIRO worked under the Muslim World League, an
organisation supported by the Saudi Arabia government.
Anzar said the relief
organisation, in the guise of giving charity to local Muslim communities, provided funds
to the Abu Sayyaf for acquiring arms.
Meanwhile, Muslim separatist
guerillas raided a village in the southern Philippines and briefly held several Christian
villagers as human shields against government troops, a military spokesman said yesterday.
Major Julieto Ando said about
50 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front stormed the village of Takol in Davao del
Sur province on Tuesday, ransacking homes for food and rations.
When government troops arrived
later, the rebels hastily fled but seized an undetermined number of villagers to be used
as human shields, Major Ando said.
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