Manila Expels Iraqi Diplomat It Linked to Rebels Wed Feb 12, 7:00 AM ET By Ruben Alabastro
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines ordered the expulsion of an Iraqi diplomat Wednesday for alleged links to Muslim radicals blamed for a bombing that killed a U.S. soldier and three Filipinos in October. Second Secretary Husham Husain was the second Iraqi diplomat in 12 years to be ejected by the Philippines. Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said he had summoned Iraqi charge d'affaires Samir Bolus and told him that Husain "should leave within 48 hours." "The Philippines today formally informed the Iraqi government that Second Secretary Husham Husain of the Iraqi embassy has ceased to enjoy the rights and privileges of a diplomat," Ople said in a statement. The embassy has earlier denied allegations that Husain was involved with members of Abu Sayyaf, a militant Muslim group which the United States has blacklisted as a "terrorist organization." Ople said Husain was being expelled after the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency traced cellular phone calls from Abu Sayyaf members to the diplomat immediately after the bombing of a karaoke bar in Zamboanga City. He did not elaborate on why the Philippines was taking action now, more than four months after the bomb blast on Oct. 2. Husain and other embassy officials could not be reached for comment. Ople said Bolus, the charge d'affaires, "did not question our decision, nor did he ask for the reasons." A U.S. special forces soldier and three Filipinos died in the bombing, which came 10 days before blasts on the Indonesian island of Bali killed more than 190 people, mostly tourists. Abu Sayyaf is mainly a kidnap-for-ransom gang which has preyed on foreigners, although it claims to fight for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country. Asked by reporters whether Manila expected Iraq to expel a Philippine diplomat from Baghdad, Ople said: "In matters like this, there is usually retaliation." The Iraqi embassy said in a statement Monday that "no one of its staff did or will do any kind of communications with dissident groups." In 1991, the Philippines ordered the Iraqi embassy's first secretary to leave over alleged links to two Iraqi nationals accused of setting off a bomb at a library in central Manila run by the U.S. embassy. One of the two Iraqis was killed in the blast at the Thomas Jefferson Center, which came five months after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and triggered the Gulf War.
