Rebels plotting attacks on Manila surrender-army

MANILA, May 17 (Reuters) Eight members of a Muslim rebel group planning to bomb a public park and a shopping mall in the Philippine capital have surrendered, a Marine general said today.

Major-General Benjamin Dolorfino said the military learned about the plot to plant crude bombs in Rizal Park and a popular shopping mall in Manila's financial area from the members of the Abu Sayyaf group who voluntarily turned themselves in on May 1.

''They were ready to attack and were just waiting for their leaders to order them to carry out the bombings,'' he said.

Dolorfino said the eight men were part of a larger group of 38 Abu Sayyaf militants dispatched to the capital to plan attacks on shopping malls, public parks and the transport network, including commuter buses, trains and ferries.

He did not say why the men gave themselves up or the whereabouts of the other members of the group.

The al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group was blamed for the worst terrorist attack in the Philippines, the bombing of a ferry near Manila bay in February 2004, killing more than 100 people.

Citing intelligence debriefing reports, Dolorfino said the eight men who surrendered were trained by members of regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah in a camp in the Muslim south of the largely Catholic country.

''These were members of numerous sleeper cells that would be activated when the need arises,'' Dolorfino said, adding elections that were held this week could have been an opportunity to stage the bombings.

Several hundred Abu Sayyaf members, sheltering a handful of Muslim fugitives from Indonesia and Malaysia, have been playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game with 8,000 troops on the southern island of Jolo since August.

The Philippine military has said it has killed 70 militants, including the group's two top leaders -- Khaddafy Janjalani and Jainel Antel Sali, alias Abu Solaiman.

REUTERS SKB HT1616