President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo yesterday said the notorious southern Philippine based kidnap for ransom group, the Pentagon, and the equally infamous communist urban hit squad, the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) have been included in the U.S. watchlist of terrorists.

The Pentagon is a rag-tag group of former Muslim rebels who had resorted to banditry while the ABB was the urban hit squad of the Communist Party of the Philippines but it was also plagued by factionalism in the Communist movement in the early 1990s.

One faction later merged with the Revolutionary Proletariat Army which signed a peace agreement with the Estrada administration. The ABB has now assumed the name Marxist Leninist Party of the Philippines or PMLP.

"Initially, the U.S. watchlist included only the Abu Sayyaf, but now, they have added the ABB and the Pentagon to the list," Arroyo said during her weekly programme aired over national TV and radio.

Arroyo said the international coalition against terrorism is now helping in the government's fight against the Pentagon, just like in the case of the Abu Sayyaf, by sharing information with the Philippines that could lead to the eradication of these groups.

She said experts from the U.S. and Philippine military are planning moves to go after the terrorists.

She hinted at a "positive development" against the Pentagon, but refused to elaborate.
The Pentagon is believed to be holding Italian missionary Giuseppe Pierantoni, who was abducted by the group last October.

The group earlier abducted four employees of a China-based construction firm in Lanao del Norte. Three of the victims were Chinese nationals and only two were able to emerge from their ordeal safely.

The third Chinese was killed by their abductors during a military rescue attempt. The fourth, a Filipino, was released by the kidnap group. The U.S. terrorist list earlier included the communist New People's Army (NPA) and the Abu Sayyaf.

Arroyo said she is counting on the joint planning of Philippine and military experts in crushing the southern Sulu and Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf once and for all.

The U.S. in recent weeks, have been sending surplus military equipment to the Philippine armed forces in the hope that these will be used against the Abu Sayyaf, who are currently holding two Americans and a Filipina hostage in the jungles of Basilan, some 1,000 km southeast of the capital Manila.