Manila wants to blacklist Islamic convert group

MANILA, Sep 28 (Reuters) The Philippines said today it would ask the United States to place a small guerrilla group of Islamic converts on a list of international terrorist organisations to stop it getting overseas funding.

Ricardo Blancaflor, director of Manila's anti-terrorism task force, said the Rajah Solaiman Islamic Movement had become one of the most dangerous Muslim militant organisations in the country and was capable of planting bombs in the capital.

''We want to stop this group by asking our foreign friends to blacklist the organisation and its members,'' Blancaflor said after addressing a forum on terrorism in Manila. ''We want to freeze their assets and stop funds flowing into their hands.'' Blancaflor said Rajah Solaiman was believed to have links with the Abu Sayyaf, the most violent Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines, and with Southeast Asian regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

Security and intelligence officials say Rajah Solaiman members along with the Abu Sayyaf were involved in the worst militant attack in the Philippines, the 2004 bombing of a ferry near Manila that killed more than 100 people.

Last year, the group was linked to three simultaneous bomb attacks in Manila's financial district and two southern cities that killed a dozen people.

Security forces had arrested separately the group's two top leaders -- Hilarion Santos and Pio de Vera -- in the southern port city of Zamboanga in 2005, disrupting a plot to blow up a truck bomb in Manila's tourist area in April 2006.

''They continued to plot against U S and foreign targets in the capital,'' Blancaflor said.

The military said the group has about 28 members, hiding with the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah on the southwestern island of Jolo, where 6,000 soldiers have been fighting about 200 militants since August 1.

REUTERS SP HT1715