Philippines: May 6, 2004

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Police broke up an terrorist support group in the south with the arrest of the group leader and the naming of several other members. The  Jemaah Islamiya group was cracked by tracing $25,000 as it moved from an al Qaeda account to the group in the southern Philippines. Police say that the more links for the group in the Philippines were traced to Indonesia.  The government is fearful that al Qaeda is trying to use the Moslem minority in the Philippines as a base for organizing and carrying out major terrorist attacks against the Christian majority.  Only five percent of Filipinos are Moslem, but they want to expel all Christians from the southern Philippines, where most Moslems live, and eventually kill or convert all Christians in the Philippines. The Philippines has the largest Christian population in Southeast Asia.