Asia Times: On the scent of terror


	October 11, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

HEY, JOE
On the scent of terror
By Ted Lerner

ANGELES CITY, Philippines - Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi must have enjoyed themselves in Angeles City. Heck, who wouldn't. With plenty of willing and available girls, reasonable accommodation and even some decent Middle Eastern food, even the most hardened religious fundamentalist would be hard pressed not to take a dip into all this dirty fun.

There's a story going around this hardscrabble, dusty town, which is the former home to the United States Air Force at Clark Field, that the two now dead hijacking suspects in the September 11 terrorist attacks stayed here on several occasions over the last few years. Five former employees of the Woodland Park Resort in Angeles City recently came forward and said that they remembered the faces of Atta and al Shehhi. The employees claimed that the two had stayed at the resort twice, once in 1997 and again in 1999. Coincidentally, the resort happens to own a small flying school, and the employees said that they remembered the two being picked up in the resort van and taken to the school for flying lessons. One employee even remembered getting a dollar tip from Atta.

The Aeroclub flying school in the nearby town of Magalang is not exactly the kind of place one would go to if one wanted to learn to fly any kind of plane, big or small. At the Aeroclub they fly small contraptions called ultralights, which resemble a hang glider with a motor, more like a lawnmower in the sky.

The manager of Woodlands wanted nothing to do with my queries. She said that since the story had appeared in the papers, dozens of reporters had invaded the resort wanting to know if there was a connection to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"No comment," was her oft repeated line when I asked several times if the two really did stay there. She did confirm that two US intelligence agents visited a couple of days ago, which goes to show how serious the Americans are as they follow every lead, hot, warm or cold. She said that the agents looked at the guest records, but wouldn't say if they found any connections.

"We don't want any more publicity," the manager said with a sneer, pointing to the exit door of her office with her eyes. An employee at the pool bar, who had only worked at the resort for three months, said that the whole story wasn't true. How he could make an assessment isn't clear.

"We don't have any terrorists staying here, sir," he said with a smile. "Those people who said that were disgruntled employees. They just wanted to make the resort look bad."

A story in one local Angeles paper said that the terrorists liked to eat at the Jerusalem Middle Eastern restaurant over on Field's Avenue, which is the center of Angeles City's sleazy night life scene. The Jerusalem is owned by an Ethiopian guy whose main business is an employment agency for Filipinos working in the Middle East. The Filipina manager there seemed dumbfounded by it all. Several television stations from Manila had stormed her place and basically reported that the terrorists ate there regularly.

"I never said that," she said. "They showed me a picture of the guys and I said maybe that's him. A lot of Arabs eat here. You know, all Arabs look the same. There's a lot of chismis [gossip] going around." The stories also stated that since August all Arabs had stopped feasting at the Jerusalem, insinuating that they all knew a major plot was afoot, so they skipped town or went into hiding. "Yes August was slow," the manager said, "but actually business has been dead since June."

Whatever the case may be, nobody here, Filipino or foreigner, discounts the idea that several of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group found their way up to this former American air force town. Hordes of Arabs and Middle Easterners regularly come to the Philippines, and they're not looked at as strangers. The Philippines is an easy country to get into and an even easier country to disappear into and do pretty much whatever one pleases, if one has the money. Manila has a large, relatively peaceful Muslim population. They get along fine with the large Catholic majority, doing their business and living their lives.

That bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network have connections in the Philippines, however, is without question. Bin Laden disciple Ramsey Yousef was a regular visitor to the Philippines during the 1990s. He is said to have helped train the Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels in Mindanao in bomb making and other terrorist activities. The Abu Sayyaf even demanded Yousef's immediate release from a US prison when they took their latest batch of hostages, which included three Americans. Yousef's partner was arrested in Manila in 1995 while making a bomb that was supposedly meant to assassinate Pope John Paul II, who was visiting the country at the time. This ultimately led to Yousef's arrest in Pakistan.

Anyone looking to fund the Muslim secessionist rebels down south could easily bring in money, operate quietly in Manila and travel back and forth to Mindanao without anyone batting an eyelash. Despite the US State Department's ominous warning to Americans abroad, nobody in Angeles City seems too bothered by any potential problems. Angeles might seem like a high profile place, seeing as there are about 4,000 foreigners here, many of them ex-US military. But the town is definitely a lay low kind of place, a rough and raw, wild west cow town with everything that one would associate with the old American west except the tumble weed.

Angeles still has the flavor of a bawdy and sleazy resort and recreation town from its days when it serviced the needs of the thousands of American military men who passed through the base. Angeles is still often referred to as Sin City, and for good reason. It's a town of local girls and foreign men on the make, girlie bars, short time hotels, cheap roadside canteens and Internet joints where bar girls plead with former customers over the computer to marry them and take them back to a perceived paradise in the West.

At an area called Checkpoint on Field's Avenue, peddlers hawk T-shirts that say, "Wanted Dead or Alive, Osama Bin Laden, For Mass Murder In New York City." The peddlers say the shirts are selling well, mostly to Westerners. This brazenness isn't surprising as many of the foreigners in Angeles constitute a rather hardcore, salty lot, Vietnam vets who have done and seen some terrible things in their time. The possibility that terrorists cells may be around scares nobody here.

Out on Clark Base, the American flag still flies high over the Clark Cemetery where hundreds of American servicemen are buried. After using the base for over 70 years, the Americans left Clark Air Base in a hurry in 1991, driven out by the volcanic explosion of nearby Mt Pinatubo. Actually, the Philippine government had voted them out earlier so when the Americans left, the Philippine government was left with the monumental task of cleaning up the base of all the ash from the volcano.

Clark Base, which was America's largest overseas air base, is a beautiful facility, with the quality and breadth of infrastructure one would associate with a slice of America in Asia. The Americans left two perfect runways capable of landing the space shuttle. When the Philippines took over they tried to create an export processing zone and an Asian Las Vegas, an effort which has had more failures than successes.

It's no wonder then that the management is practically salivating over the prospects of the Americans possibly using the bases for its war on terror. The Philippine government made the offer and several C-130 transport planes have already landed for refueling. "We welcome it," said Jose Luciano, the vice president of the Clark Development Corporation. "We support that decision. Clark is big enough."

The Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge (VFW) in Angeles is the largest of its kind outside the US. They held a prayer vigil after the attacks and a picture of rescue workers hoisting the US Flag amid the carnage at the World Trade Center is posted proudly on the bulletin board. A few guys will tell you they're ready to go back and fight. But that's mostly more of the same thing they've been doing since they retired from the military - talk. Who wants to budge, when the beer is cold and cheap, the women friendly and their pensions go a country mile?

They sit around the bar of the VFW with Fox news or CNN constantly blaring and talk about problems with their pensions, their health and life in the crazy Philippines, and speculate on what gruesome fate should be brought on bin Laden should the Americans catch him.

With that kind of talk going around, it's small wonder that the Arabs who were hanging out in Angeles City can't be seen anymore.

Ted Lerner is the author of the book, Hey, Joe - a slice of the city, an American in Manila. He can be reached via email at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com.

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