MANILA (AFP) — Al-Qaeda linked Islamic militants are suspected of rampant intellectual piracy in the Philippines, particularly of Hollywood films, to raise funds, a senior media industry official said Wednesday.
The Abu Sayyaf, blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the Southeast Asian country, were likely behind the illegal copying of movies onto DVDS, which are then peddled at Manila shops by migrant Muslim traders, Optical Media Board chairman Edu Manzano said.
The government agency has been cracking down on the trade, but he said in an interview over ABS-CBN television that this has not stemmed the tide of counterfeits.
Manzano said many armed groups around the world traffic in counterfeits to raise funds, and the Abu Sayyaf would be no exception.
"In the same way that the Yakuza (crime gangs) are behind them in Japan and the Hezbollah are involved in (counterfeiting) the Middle East, they are suspected of this," he said, referring to Abu Sayyaf.
Although the government lacked "documentary evidence" linking the Abu Sayyaf to the trade, he said recent government raids on suspected intellectual pirates in Manila's Muslim communities have turned up counterfeit DVDs and fake luxury goods packaged with illegal drugs, grenades and even mercury.
Manzano said the highly regulated metal was a vital component in the manufacture of "priming devices for explosives."
The Abu Sayyaf was allegedly set up with seed funds provided by Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. It has been blamed for bombings and kidnappings in the Philippines.
The government says the group was set up by a Filipino Muslim who fought alongside foreign Islamic volunteers against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Abu Sayyaf gunmen killed a marine and wounded another in an ambush in the southern Philippines island of Jolo on Tuesday, officials said Wednesday.
