North Korea has reportedly played a major role in arming members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest guerrilla movement in the Philippines.

Philippine military officers discovered the connection after U.S. officials prodded them to more intensely investigate the sources of rifles, light machine guns, rocketed-propelled grenades and stacks of ammunition manufactured in North Korea.

Philippine sources say North Korea shipped most of the arms several years ago, at a time when the North was also selling Scud and Rodong missiles to clients from Libya to Pakistan.

The report, published in Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's biggest-selling newspaper, cited security sources in the Middle East as saying that North Korea sold 10,000 M16 rifles and other arms and ammunition, including grenades. Ironically, the M16 is an American weapon, a copy of which is manufactured in North Korea. The North's whose army uses the AK47 as its basic infantry weapon.

Most of the arms were shipped in 1999 and 2000, according to Yomiuri. They were reportedly transferred to the MILF in Malaysia, the largely Muslim nation from which Muslim rebels in the Philippines have been operating for years.

The Al Qaida organization, with direct ties both to terrorist groups in Southeast Asia and to Mideast governments, urged the sale to the MILF, finding common cause with North Korea in their mutual hatred of the United States. Al Qaida operates in Southeast Asia under the aegis of Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been involved in some of the region's bloodiest acts of terrorism.

The North Korean arms sales to the MILF coincided with rising terrorism by Islamic guerrillas, inspired and in some cases directed by Al Qaida inside the Philippines. An Al Qaida operative was arrested in the Philippines last June on charges of bringing "donations" for the MILF from Al Qaida and other radical Islamic sources.

North Korea is believed to have sold the arms to the MILF before the group entered into sporadic talks with the Philippine government in hopes of resolving basic differences.

In addition, investigations by Southeast Asian nations' security authorities show that the MILF told North Korea in June 1999 that it wanted to buy a North Korean mini-submarine, the Yomiuri Shimbun said in a dispatch from Jakarta.

Quoting sources among the security authorities of unidentified Southeastern Asian nations, the daily said the arms deals — mostly taking place in Malaysia — came to light as a result of documents the authorities confiscated from the MILF in November 2004.

The deal was engineered by Rim Kyu-Do, a North Korean authorized to negotiate contracts on behalf of his government, and Ghazali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs. The MILF paid $1 million but still owes another $1.2 million in the deal.

Yomiuri said North Korea had also said it would send at least one mini-submarine to the MILF, but has yet to deliver.

The submarine was to have been of the same type that was caught in the nets of a South Korean fisherman off South Korea's east coast in July 1998 and then dragged into port, where South Korean navy investigators found the bodies of nine North Koreans inside. North Korean agents had apparently killed the sailors on the sub before shooting themselves.

Such a submarine would have been ideal for carrying MILF special troops into remote harbors and inlets, where they could have ambushed Philippine government troops and officials. The North held off on delivering the submarine, though, after U.S. and Philippine intelligence sources got wind of the deal