| Southeast Asia |
| Wanted Abu Sayyaf terrorist nabbed in Zamboanga |
| 2012-03-23 |
 Philippine security forces arrested a member of Abu Sayyaf in Zamboanga City in Mindanao before noon today. PNP spokesman Agrimero Cruz identified the suspect as Abdulwahab Hamia, alias Amia, 42, who he called one of the most wanted.Cruz said Hamia had arrest warrants for six counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention. He said Hamia used to work under Abu Sayyaf commander Ghalib Andang, alias Commander Robot. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Vice mayor shot dead in S Philippines |
| 2011-12-21 |
 (Xinhua) -- A vice mayor of a town in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga Sibugay was rubbed out Tuesday afternoon, police said.Philippine National Police front man Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. said Carlito Bayawa, vice mayor of Siay town was shot to death by two unidentified cycle of violence riding suspects at around 4:50 p.m. local time outside the Development Bank of the Philippines Building in Poblacion in Ipil town of the same province. Police have launched a manhunt operation against the suspects, said Cruz. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Ex-Philippine mayor gunned down |
| 2011-06-28 |
| [Straits Times] A FORMER town mayor in the strife-torn southern Philippines was rubbed out on Monday in a brazen attack that also badly maimed his wife, police said. Najib Maldisa suffered six bullet wounds to his body and died as he was being rushed to hospital after the attack in Zamboanga city on Mindanao island, national police front man Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said. His wife was in a serious condition, Mr Cruz said. No group has grabbed credit for the attack, but police said the motive could be local political rivalry. Maldisa was formerly the mayor of Maimbung town, on nearby Jolo island, a known stronghold of Mohammedan Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... cut-throats and other local armed gangs. Political rivalry among Mohammedan clans are common in many parts of the southern Philippines, where a proliferation of unlicensed firearms has complicated decades of insurgency. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippine rebels burn bus drivers to death |
| 2011-03-06 |
| [Straits Times] TWO bus drivers were burnt to death early on Saturday in the Philippines when armed communist guerrillas set fire to their vehicles, police said. A small group of gunnies broke into a bus depot on the remote central island of Biliran before dawn and poured petrol over the parked vehicles, said Senior Superintendent Alfredo Sabornido, the provincial police chief. 'The owner woke up and seeing his buses on fire tried to rescue his drivers, who were sleeping inside the vehicles,' Mr Sabornido told news hounds by telephone. 'However both were burnt to death.' It was unclear if the intruders knew people were asleep inside the vehicles during the arson attack. Police later nabbed two suspects at a checkpoint, said national police front man Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz. 'Initial investigation points to NPA extortion,' Mr Cruz told news hounds. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Six people dead in Philippine violence |
| 2010-09-24 |
| [Gulf Times] Six civilians were killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a house in the southern Philippines, a police spokesman said yesterday. Two people were also injured in the attack late Tuesday in Patikul town on Jolo Island, 1,000kms south of Manila, senior superintendent Agrimero Cruz said. Cruz said the victims had just finished having dinner when the gunmen attacked. He said investigators were still determining the motive for the attack and the identities of the suspects. Jolo Island is a stronghold of Al Qaeda-linked militants who have been blamed for deadly terrorist attacks in the Philippines. Criminal groups also operate on Jolo while family feuds that often deteriorate into violence are rampant in the area. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippine police breaks up jail riot, 11 hurt |
| 2006-05-08 |
| MANILA, May 8 (Reuters) - Philippine police, firing warning shots in the air, broke up a fight between Muslim and Christian prisoners at a detention centre in Manila that injured 11 inmates, officials said on Monday. Agrimero Cruz, a national police spokesman, said dozens of knives and improvised weapons were confiscated from hundreds of prisoners at a four-storey detention centre in Camp Bagong Diwa, site of a 24-hour bloody stand-off in March 2005. "The riot started from a very minor misunderstanding over some petty things between a Muslim and a Christian inmate," Cruz said, denying the violence could be another attempt by prisoners to bolt out of the maximum security facility. He said 11 prisoners -- seven Christians belonging to two criminal gangs and four alleged members of the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf -- were brought to a state hospital for the stab wounds they sustained during the riot. "We're still getting to the root of the problem. We're also trying to determine how the improvised weapons were smuggled inside the jail," Cruz added. Police and jail officials said they restored order after nearly two hours of bloody rioting by warning shots and water hoses. Last year, police commandos shot dead 22 suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf after a 24-hour stand-off when the alleged Muslim militants attempted to escape from their prison cells. Jail breaks are common in the impoverished mainly Roman Catholic country in Southeast Asia. Nearly 20 people escaped in three separate police jails outside Manila last week. Since January this year, the police said about 44 people had escaped from detention centres outside the capital Manila. Last year, a total 51 jailbreaks were reported, with nearly 150 people escaping. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| JI members also being held in Filippino jail |
| 2005-03-14 |
| Up to six people were killed Monday in a bloody jailbreak attempt by a number of Filipino Muslim militants from Al Qaeda-linked groups, police said. Gunfire rang out at the Camp Bagong Diwa prison as police special weapons and tactics units, some inside an armored personnel carrier, surrounded one building in the compound where the armed Abu Sayyaf prisoners were holed up on the second floor. The inmates had overpowered their guards and grabbed two assault rifles and a handgun in an early morning melee, said Metropolitan Manila police chief Avelino Razon. Police spokesman Jun Cruz said "more or less eight to 10 inmates" may have been involved in the escape attempt. Some 100 other prisoners were held on the other floors of the building, Superintendent Cruz said. "They (gunmen) are confined in one building. They cannot go out," he added. "We are trying to defuse the situation. We have deployed snipers and a negotiating team," Razon said. Cruz told reporters three jail guards and one prisoner had been killed two hours into the standoff. Shooting subsided by mid-morning as the authorities used bullhorns to try to convince the gunmen to surrender. Other police sources however put the death toll at six including four Abu Sayyaf inmates and two prison guards. The sources said a prisoner and a jail guard were wounded. An AFP photographer at the scene saw two casualties, both wearing the uniforms of prison guards, being taken out on stretchers and loaded onto ambulances. Other inmates at the prison called up a local radio station in a bid to open negotiations with the authorities. They claimed the gunmen were holding about 100 inmates hostage, including Chinese held on drugs charges. But police dismissed the hostage report, saying the armed prisoners have been isolated in one section of the compound and the other prisoners were secured. "We are negotiating with the suspects inside," Cruz said, adding that the gunmen wanted to hold talks with two prominent Muslim personalities, including movie actor and Muslim convert Robin Padilla and southern Philippines Muslim legislator Mujib Hataman. Padilla was abroad and efforts were being made to reach Hataman, Cruz said. The legislator said on local radio earlier Monday that he did not know the gunmen. The shooting was the latest in a series of jailbreak attempts involving detained Muslim militants in the Philippines capital. The prison, located in the headquarters of the Metropolitan Manila police, holds suspects arrested for terrorism-related cases including Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah militants. UPDATE: MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A group of Muslim-extremist inmates at a maximum-security jail in Manila agreed to surrender Monday, a day after they snatched weapons from guards in an escape attempt that left at least five people dead, police said. Police surrounded the facility at Manila's Camp Bagong Diwa, where 425 suspects are detained, including 129 suspected members and leaders of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group. "There was some delay because they feared for their safety," said Avelino Razon, police chief for the Manila area. "But they changed their minds and they've agreed to come out." Mujib Hataman, a Muslim congressman who was negotiating with the inmates by telephone, said the prisoners demanded assurances they wouldn't be harmed, speedy trials and the right to air their grievances to authorities, he said Police spokesman Leopoldo Bataoil, who warned of a major assault if the inmates didn't surrender their weapons, said about 10 men were involved in the uprising, led by Abu Sayyaf members Alhamzer Manatad Limbong and Kair Abdul Gapar. At least three guards were killed, said police Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. Two Abu Sayyaf members also were killed, police said. The jailbreak came on the day the new national police chief took office. "We are fast becoming the world's laughingstock because of what has been happening in our jails," said Sen. Manny Villar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Illegal Drugs. Still More: March 14, 2005 11:26 PM - The stand off in Camp Bagong Diwa that left three jailguards and two prisoners dead continues Monday evening as the Abu Sayyaf inmates changed plans of surrendering to the negotiating team. Deputy Director General Avelino Razon of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said the Abu Sayyaf inmates instead asked for food as precondition for surrendering the three .45 pistols that they took from three jailguards. But Razon said they will give the inmates led by Alhamser Limbang known as Commander Kosovo their dinner only after their surrender. He also said they are now becoming doubtful of the inmates' sincerity to surrender saying that the suspects could only be prolonging the negotiation. Among the negotiating team for the police are Reps. Mujiv Hataman, Allan Cayetano, ARMM Governor Farouk Hussin, and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes. Razon said that all media entities are on stand by for the inmates' surrender. The suspects initially demanded that they be given media exposure after their surrender to air their side and defend themselves from the charges. They also want the police to assure their safety after their surrender and they also want a Razon nevertheless said he believed inmates will surrender before the day ends because the government have been sincere in granting the demands. He did not mention any plans to effect an assault to end the stand off. But reports reaching abs-cbnNEWS.com said the government negotiators have already left the BJMP building, which should indicate that the authorities are preparing for an assault as of posting time. |
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| Southeast Asia | |
| More details on the jail break/hostage situation | |
| 2005-03-14 | |
A suspected Islamic militant grabbed a guard's rifle Sunday while being led to a court hearing, shot dead three other guards and holed up in the building with armed detainees who joined him, police said. Police surrounded the building in Manila, and negotiators were trying to end the standoff, police Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said. It wasn't clear if hostages were being held, he said. But a detainee delegated to speak for the prisoners told DZBB radio that the suspects were holding around 100 hostages. It wasn't clear if they were detainees, guards or both. Cruz said the prisoners demanded to talk to movie action star Robin Padilla, a Muslim convert, and Partylist Representative Mujib Hataman. The attacker, a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant, was being escorted from a maximum security detention center that houses mostly Muslim extremists when he overpowered the guard. He then took his rifle and shot the prison officers around him, police officials said. At least three guards were killed, Cruz said. Another police officer said at least three other prison officials were wounded and rushed to a hospital.
 Still more info:National Capital Region Director Avelino Razon in a television interview said the Abu Sayyaf inmates are now restricted in one area inside the jail facility while the rest of the inmates were transferred to a safer section in the detention center. The group is led by Alhanser Manatad Limbong alias Commander Kosovo, Commander Robot and Commander Global, all known Abu Sayyaf leaders. [Former hostage] Gracia Burnham visited Camp Bagong Diwa last year for the hearing of suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits accused of kidnapping for ransom. She identified six of eight men, all suspected of being members of the Islamic Abu Sayyaf group, as among her kidnappers. They are Abu Umbran alias Abdul Assan Djamla , Kosovo, Abu Kair Mokhtar alias Khayr Moktar, Alsen Jandul alias Balintong Djandul, a certain Abu Daud and Bas Ismael. Marksmen and Special Forces are deployed in the area to cordon off the section where the Abu Sayyaf inmates are holed out. | |
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