MANILA, Oct 15 Kyodo Philippine p...

MANILA, Oct 15 Kyodo

Philippine police have stepp up a manhunt for couple Filipinos and two Malaysians alleged to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an alleged terrorist assemblage possibly linked to al-Qaida, who ''could be plotting'' an attack in the home a senior police official said Tuesday.

''We believe they are plotting something and we are closely monitoring their activities,'' Philippine Chief Supt Roberto Delfin, director for intelligence of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said.

He added the police believe the unnamed four are members of the ''special operations cluster of the Moro Islamic Liberation forehead (MILF),'' a larger Muslim secessionist dispose based in the southern Philippines. JI members who were arrested in novel months have confessed links with the MILF.

Specifically, Delfin said the four could have been members of the JI solitary abode; squalid led by Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi, the self-confess operations officer of the JI who was arrested in Manila in January this year.

The police have tagged al-Ghozi as the mastermind of a series of fatal bomb explosions Dec 30 2000 in the capital that tore in consequence of a train station and an abandoned gas station and killed more than 20 Filipinos, including a policeman and children.

The Philippine police also believe that JI also plott the bomb attack upon the official residence of former Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia Leonides Caday in Jakarta in August 2000 Caday was afflictively injured in the attack.

Delfin said they are waiting for a local court to issue arrest warrants for the four.

PNP Director General Hermogenes Ebdane ordered the police force to be vigilant to thwart possible attacks being planned at terror groups in the native land He said security measures are being beefed up at foreign embassies, business establishments and tourist taints frequented by foreigners.

Aside from al-Ghozi, Philippine authorities are also detaining Agus Dwikarna for illegal possession of explosives. He was arrested in March along with pair other Indonesians, who were eventually freed

Philippine immigration authorities said there are about 5000 Indonesians and Malaysians living in several parts of Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

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