MANILA, Philippines—Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Alexander Yano is in Thailand for an annual meeting of Southeast Asian military chiefs, wherein they are expected to draft counter-terrorism cooperation agreements, a Philippine military spokesman said Friday."The regional effort on counter-terrorism will be given primary consideration," AFP spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres Jr. told a news conference in Camp Aguinaldo. Torres said the military chiefs of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations would "coordinate" efforts in terms of intelligence gathering and border patrols against terrorism and other security threats such as smuggling and piracy. When asked by reporters, Torres said terrorism remained the most serious security threat in the region, based on the AFP's assessment, even as the capability of terrorist groups in the Philippines was on the decline. "We would expect that there will be some agreements that would be signed collectively by the member countries," Torres said. The meeting in Bangkok would run from Saturday to Sunday. Yano left the country late Thursday, the spokesman said. The Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian arm of Al-Qaeda terror network, was behind the bloodiest terrorist attacks in the region, including the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, and the bombing of the Superferry 14 off Manila Bay in 2004. | 
