The US and Australian governments warned yesterday that militants could be planning to bomb a gathering of Asian leaders in the central Philippines next week.

The warnings come a day after the British Embassy in Manila advised its citizens not to travel to the central island of Cebu because they believed terrorists were in the "final stages of planning attacks."

The Japanese Government urged its citizens to possibly postpone travel to the Philippines after the Australian and British advisories.

The heads of 10 Southeast Asian nations along with the leaders of China, Japan, India, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia will meet on Cebu from Sunday to next Thursday for a flurry of summits, dinners and closed door tete-a-tetes.

"We have information that there is a group that may be planning some terrorist attacks in line with the conference," a US Embassy spokesman said.

The Philippines, which is hosting the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has played down the threat from militant groups despite battling long-running insurgencies by Muslim militias and leftist rebels.

"There's no specific and direct threats in Cebu during the summit meetings," said Chief Superintendent Silverio Alarcio, regional police chief, adding that the British advisory was "just a warning."

"That does not mean there was really an imminent attack," he said.

Local security officials have said they were checking reports that members of regional Muslim terror group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and local partner Abu Sayyaf were trying to get into Cebu.

"We've been getting regular reports of bomb threats in some big shopping malls," said one police officer. "We can't really ignore these things, so we're checking the information quietly because we don't want people to panic."

In March, police said an improvised bomb was discovered at a large shopping centre close to a convention centre being used for briefings for the ASEAN summit and a gathering of East Asian leaders.

The Philippines, which holds the rotating chair of ASEAN, has deployed 13,000 police officers and soldiers to patrol the luxury hotels and streets of Cebu and nearby Mactan Island to secure the gathering.

Two navy ships anchored off Cebu in a temporary blockade and road blocks were set up on routes leading to the Shangri-La Hotel, where most of the summit meetings will be held.

New storm may hit summit venue

A new storm approaching the central Philippines is on track to become the second typhoon in 10 days to batter the archipelago, forecasters said yesterday, as the country struggled to recover from typhoon-triggered rains and mudslides that left more than 1,000 people dead or missing.

The tropical depression, locally named Seniang, was about 1,000 kilometres east of Leyte island and was forecast to make landfall tomorrow, before moving in the direction of Cebu, according to weather projections.

The Philippine weather bureau said the storm was packing sustained winds of up to 55 kilometres per hour yesterday and moving west at 19 kilometres per hour (kpm).

The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said the system was forecast to intensify into a typhoon, with sustained winds of up to 150 kph.

In 1991, a flash flood in Ormoc city on the western side of Leyte island killed about 6,000 people. In February this year, more than 1,000 died when a mudslide swept the village of Guisaugon after torrential rains.

The Philippines is hit by about 20 typhoons and storms a year, which frequently trigger deadly landslides and flash floods.

Last week, Typhoon Durian, with winds of up to 265 kph, unleashed walls of volcanic debris, mud and floodwaters on villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano in the Bicol region, southeast of Manila.

Official figures showed 570 people were killed and 746 are missing and feared dead.

More than 1 million people in 13 eastern provinces were affected, and about 20,000 have gone to evacuation centres. The government has launched a massive cleanup operation with the help of foreign assistance.

Source: China Daily