World | Philippines
Army allays fears of terror attack
Security forces quickly moved to allay fears of possible terror attacks yesterday ahead of a summit by Asean leaders summit in central Philippines' Cebu city.
- By Gilbert Felongco, Correspondent
- Published: 00:00 December 8, 2006
Manila: Security forces quickly moved to allay fears of possible terror attacks yesterday ahead of a summit by Asean leaders summit in central Philippines' Cebu city.
In a press briefing, Armed Forces public information chief Lt Col Bartolome Bacarro downplayed warnings of a possible terror attack in Cebu province as contained in a recent travel advisory issued by the British Embassy in Manila.
"We'd like to assure and inform the public that as of this very moment, we have not received any validated threat that would really show that there would be an attempt" by terror groups to disrupt the meeting, Bacarro said yesterday, three days ahead of the opening of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in Cebu City. The summit is slated to end on December 13.
Bacarro said while the armed force cannot discount the possibility of a terror attack occurring during the event, the armed forces and the police are doing their best to foil any attempt to disrupt the meeting.
Earlier, security officials said that if there are such groups who are capable of carrying out terror attacks during the summit, it would be the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah and the southern Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf.
Authorities had deployed some 5,500 personnel including marines, police commandos and specialised units, to secure the 1,000 odd delegates due to attend the meeting in central Philippines' premier city.
"All the law enforcement agencies are prepared and all contingencies have been taken into consideration. We have plans in the event of a worse case scenario is an attack either through the air or the sea, conventional or unconventional," Bacarro said the security cordon around the summit venue includes air defence units.
The national police, said it is confident that security measures are sufficient to address any threat including those from activist groups who had vowed to disrupt the summit.
- with inputs from Rafael Juan, Correspondent
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