About 180 people are on a global blacklist of suspected members of the al Qaeda network and airport authorities across the world have been asked to watch out for them, the Philippines' immigration chief said on Thursday.
Authorities in Djakarta have also been warned of another 30 or so followers of the Jemaah Islamiah, a radical Muslim organisation based in Southeast Asia, Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo told the Foreign Correspondents' Association.
"We are trying better than our best to prevent terrorists from coming into the country, or if they are already in the country, to prevent them from trying to do harm to our people and our society," she said.
"That has been our greatest concern in the last few months and also our greatest nightmare."
She said the blacklist had been collated by international agencies including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(China Daily April 11, 2002)
