‘Terror for sale, terrorists for hire’

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Terror groups have turned bombings and bomb-making into a profitable criminal trade, offering to manufacture bombs or set these off to anyone willing to pay the price, a top regional police official said yesterday.

Chief Supt. Felicisimo Khu, chief of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao, said “bombers for hire and bombers for sale” have emerged in Maguindanao and Lanao.

A group under wanted terrorist Basit Usman is believed to be behind the rising criminal enterprise, said Khu.

“In a sense, Usman’s group is earning locally,” said the officer. “They’re like NGOs (nongovernment organizations) now. They make projects and activities. They also get money when their foreign supporters see that their performance is good,” Khu said.

An improvised explosive device (IED) made out of an 80 mm mortar shell can be sold for as much as P15,000, he said.

“Those with 105 howitzers shells are quite expensive and could fetch between P60,000 to P70,000 a piece,” Khu said.

Khu said members of terror groups are also hired to plant IEDs but he had no idea how much they charge for the job.

Pressed to elaborate on the sources of his information, Khu said police recently studied images found in Maguindanao that support his story about terror for sale and terror for hire. He said studies have also been made on this.

Khu said Usman’s group fabricates the bombs then sells these in an area of Liguasan Marsh in Maguindanao.

“It is a place safe for them to operate, government troops could not easily penetrate it because of other groups in the area like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” he said.

Khu said based on a police study, not all explosions that had occurred in Mindanao were terror-related.

Khu said in Maguindanao and in the Lanao provinces, police considered the attacks as either political in nature, economic, personal or the offshoot of family feuds.

Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of Western Mindanao Command, said some of the bomb attacks were motivated by extortion or by the greed of some groups out to make money from selling bombs or sending bombers to hit jobs.

“Not all of the attacks were terror-related,” he said.

Cabangbang said moving bombs around was easy for the armed groups. “It’s easy for them to make one and ship it because some components are easily accessible such as urea (a kind of fertilizer),” Cabangbang said.

In the case of explosions here and in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, Khu said the situation was different.

He said in most cases, the Abu Sayyaf was involved. Khu said the Abu Sayyaf does not make money out of selling bombs but getting foreign funding for successful terror missions.

“They operate and sow terror to generate funds from local and foreign groups,” said Khu. Julie S. Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao