Word: arroyo
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...POLITICAL SUPPORT Bush has lavishly praised President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has supported her stand against local terrorist groups and has hosted her at the White House?all part of a bid to help boost his ally's chances of re-election next...
...Indeed, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appeared on television last week to acknowledge for the first time that her country might be a haven for at least 45?some say hundreds?of JI militants, as well as suspected al-Qaeda operatives. "We are elevating the JI into our official national-threat spectrum," Arroyo declared. The President added that JI was now considered the greatest threat to stability in the Philippines, dwarfing the country's smoldering communist insurgency and the struggle for independence by Islamic fighters in the Muslim-dominated south...
...demonstrate her resolve, Arroyo held an Oct. 23 press conference during which Refke was put on public display. Arms and legs manacled, flanked by two hefty soldiers, the youth's diminutive size and fear-filled eyes made him seem more like a terrified boy than one of the country's top Islamic militants. But according to Arroyo, his arrest was a major step forward in shutting down a substantial JI cell. "The terrorists are falling one by one," she crowed. "This reduces the weight of the terrorist threat ... in our country and across Southeast Asia...
...foreign combat troops from operating in the country, but hundreds of U.S. special forces have been training Filipino soldiers in counterterrorism tactics for the past two years. The U.S. is also supplying the country with military hardware to hunt down militants, including 20 "Huey" helicopters. After Bush's visit, Arroyo told foreign journalists that her government would allow the U.S. to play a more direct role in a stepped-up antiterror campaign "to the extent allowed by the constitution...
...Other recent arrests suggest the problem goes beyond JI. Just a few hours after Arroyo paraded Refke before the press, the Bureau of Immigration's commissioner, Andrea Domingo, announced the capture of two suspected al-Qaeda operatives, both Arabs, on Philippine soil. One of them, 36-year-old Jordanian Mahmoud Afif Abdeljalil, was arrested on Sept. 25 in the city of Zamboanga while attempting to sell 14 properties owned by Alice Yabo, the second wife of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa is Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. He ran a number of Islamic charities in the Philippines until...