Manila – The authorities in the Philippines said yesterday that they had received reliable reports that an Indonesian detained since March was involved in deadly bomb blasts in Manila and Jakarta.

Justice Under-Secretary Jose Calida said the reports, relayed by undisclosed international contacts, implicated Agus Dwikarna, a suspected Islamic militant, in the two bombings.

More than a dozen people were killed in a blast in a train in Manila in December 2000. The Jakarta blast occurred outside the Philippine Embassy in August 2000, killing two people and injuring 20 others.

Mr Calida said the original source of the information was one of 13 men arrested in Singapore last December for allegedly planning attacks on US targets. Those arrested are accused of belonging to the Islamic militant Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, part of the South-east Asian network of Al-Qaeda.

"We received information that Agus was a participant in the planning of the railway bombing and the bombing of the residence of Philippine ambassador to Indonesia Leonides Caday. We are following up this lead," Mr Calida said. Philippine police have previously accused Agus of belonging to JI. Agus and two other Indonesians were arrested at Manila airport on March 13, after explosives were allegedly found in one man's luggage.

The other two Indonesians were freed the following month because of insufficient evidence.

Agus is a coordinator for Laskar Jundullah, a militant Muslim group advocating the imposition of Islamic syariah law in Indonesia. Another Indonesian, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, 30, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the Philippines in April for illegal possession of explosives.

Meanwhile, the Philippines military's Chief of Staff Roy Cimatu said yesterday that the military needed to revamp its organisational structure to deal with international terrorism.

He said the armed forces were still geared towards repelling "external aggression" with "conventional or semi-conventional warfare" with units organised under divisions, brigades and battalions.

But now that combating rebels such as the Abu Sayyaf kidnap gang, who did not fight according to conventional rules, was a priority, a new approach was needed, he said. The new approach would include continued training exercises with US forces in the south, he said.