The Australian reports upon a new terrorist group aligned with Jemaah-Islamiya and Abu Sayyaf in SE Asia calling itself Rajah Solaiman. What makes Rajah Solaiman different is that it’s a group of Christian converts to Islam who are “highly educated and well-financed” and lack “the profile of traditional Islamist terrorist groups.”

Rajah Solaiman has direct links to al-Qa’ida’s leadership and to JI’s 2002 Bali bombers Umar Patek, who was killed last month, and Dulmatin, who is still on the run in the war-torn southern Philippines.

Rajah Solaiman’s name is taken from a 16th-century Filipino king, a Muslim who was the last of the homegrown monarchs before the Spanish conquest. Australian authorities say it poses a significant threat not only to Philippine interests, but also to Western interests abroad, including Australia’s – from foreign embassies to shopping malls, passenger ferries and nightclubs popular with Western tourists.

Rajah Solaiman leader Ahmed Santos, captured late last year in Mindanao, even sheltered Patek and Dulmatin at his family farm in the southern Philippines, where JI, Rajah Solaiman and Abu Sayyaf operatives established a joint training camp, where bomb-making was taught.

Santos converted to Islam in the 1990s via the Islamic Studies Call and Guidance, a group linked by US intelligence to Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.

This is further evidence of the splitting of Al Qaida aligned groups that presents a different challenge today than it did a mere five years ago.

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