| Southeast Asia |
| Philippines arrests Abu Sayyaf member |
| 2006-04-26 |
| Philippine soldiers arrested a Muslim militant with links to al Qaeda suspected of a series of kidnappings and bombings since 2000 that killed Americans and Filipinos, an army spokesman said on Tuesday. Major Bartolome Bacarro said troops seized Sharie Amiruddin, a suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf group, on Monday in Zamboanga City on the southern island of Mindanao. "He was the planner of the Dos Palmas kidnapping," Bacarro told reporters, adding Amiruddin was also blamed for bomb attacks in three southern cities in 2002. In May 2001, a boatload of Abu Sayyaf rebels snatched 20 tourists and workers from the Dos Palmas resort on the western island of Palawan and brought them to the south, where most of them they were held in the jungle for several months. One American tourist, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the rebels. Another American, Martin Burnham, was killed during a rescue operation by elite troops and his wife, Gracia, was shot in the leg. The Burnhams, Christian missionaries working in the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, were held for more than a year. Bacarro said Amiruddin had been under surveillance for weeks after the military got information the Abu Sayyaf was plotting to bomb shopping malls and public parks in Zamboanga during Easter holidays earlier this month. The plans were disrupted when the supposed bomb-maker was killed during a raid by police and soldiers on a hideout outside Zamboanga two weeks ago, a senior police intelligence official said. Three days after that raid, security forces stormed another Abu Sayyaf hideout in a Muslim village in Zamboanga, confiscating blasting caps and materials for making crude bombs. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| MILF thug admits to role in 2000 bombing |
| 2005-03-09 |
| A SELF-confessed member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) arrested last Friday has owned up to the bombing of a shopping mall in Mandaluyong City in 2000, which killed one and injured 20 others. During tactical interrogation, Rahid Buday, confessed that he coddled two other MILF members while they were preparing to attack the SM Megamall Cinema 6, Brigadier General Jose Angel Honrado told reporters. According to Buday the attack was made to scare away investors and show that the government was "not in control of the situation," said Colonel Restituto Aguilar, commander of the Army brigade that arrested the MILF rebel. Buday, wearing an orange shirt, was presented to media in Camp Aguinaldo. Honrado kept mum on Buday's alleged involvement in the Valentine's Day bus bombing in Makati City that killed four people and injured almost 100 others. "It's premature to say that," Honrado told reporters when asked to confirm claims of Major General Raul Relano, Army 6th Infantry Division commander, and Major Bartolome Bacarro, Army spokesman, that Buday was involved in the February 14 attack. Buday was arrested in his safehouse in barangay (village) Layug, Pagalungan town, Maguindanao province last Friday. Recounting the events prior to the mall bombing, Buday confessed that sometime in 2000, Panayaman asked him to accommodate Ambo and Moisan in his home at the Maharlika Village in Taguig City, Honrado said. In May that year, while inside Buday's house, Panayaman gave Boisan and Ambo the explosives, encased in a shoebox. Panayaman told the two to strap the explosives to their bodies and assemble the bomb inside the cinema's comfort room. With Buday's arrest, only one more suspect in the Megamall bombing, a certain Ustadz Nabel Panayaman, has remained at large, Honrado said. Dante Matu Ambo and Danny Buday Boisan were arrested on August 5, 2003. "In the next few days we will corner the remaining suspect," Honrado said, withholding additional details because "operations were still ongoing." Honrado refused to point to the MILF leadership as the mastermind of the attack. "In every organization, there are bad eggs. The MILF is cleansing itself of lost commands," he said. The MILF is set to resume peace talks with the government in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Basilan militia fighters not joining Abu Sayyaf |
| 2005-01-28 |
| MILITIAMEN in Basilan Island are "intact and all accounted for," the military said Wednesday amid reports that they have joined the Abu Sayyaf bandit group. This was revealed after Colonel Apolinario Alobba, commander of the Army's 18th Infantry Batallion based in the island province conducted an accounting of Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) upon orders from Army chief Lieutenant General Generoso Senga. "They are all on high morale and fully under the control of the Army Battalion commander," Army spokesman Major Bartolome Bacarro said in a statement. "The circulating news stemmed from the statements of some CAFGU whose services were terminated due to various offenses committed," Bacarro said. The dismissal of some CAFGUs was due, among others, to failure to report for duty, refusal to take refresher courses, drug abuse, and old age, Bacarro said. Other CAFGUs on the other hand resigned from the service due to low pay. |
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| Southeast Asia |
| Filippino military clashes with Abu Sayyaf |
| 2004-09-01 |
| ARMY troops clashed with suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits in Baiwas, Sumisip, Basilan Monday morning in a bid to wipe out the Al-Qaeda-linked radical terrorists in the island. Southern Command spokesman Major Bartolome Bacarro said soldiers from the 55th Infantry Battalion chanced upon the group as they were patrolling the bandit's lair in the village, at about 9:30 a.m. However, there were no immediate reports of casualties from both sides, according to Bacarro. The troops took some of the bandits' weapons they left behind, consisting of one M-16 assault rifle, one M203 Garand rifle, and several rounds of ammunitions, including six from 40 mm mortars. The troops on Basilan were earlier directed by Southcom chief Major General Generoso Senga to intensify their campaign against the remaining Abu Sayyaf group. Comdr. Mingkong, who is the military's main target, along with Abu Sayyaf prison escapee Abu Black, leads the remaining Abu Sayyaf group. Mingkong is reportedly leading some 20 armed followers and still roaming the mountains of Basilan after their overall leader Kadaffy Janjalani reportedly fled the area to Central Mindanao two years ago. Also in the list of the army anti-terror drive in the said province is Comdr. Suhu Salajain, who was implicated in the Basilan kidnappings in the past years. The army in the island neutralized Mingkong's late father, who was also known as an Abu Sayyaf fighter, some months ago, according to 103rd Army Brigade Commander Col. Raymundo Ferrer. The down-sized Abu Sayyaf group in Basilan is reportedly engaged in extortion activities, mostly victimizing passenger jeepneys in their desperate bid to survive in the jungles as they no longer enjoy support for funds from friendly foreign radical forces, and due to the currently intensified drive against terrorism the region. |
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| Southeast Asia | |
| Filippino soldiers foil bomb attacks in Mindanao | |
| 2004-08-24 | |
| Government troops foiled a bomb attack Monday in Jolo by suspected urban terrorists belonging to the Abu Sayyaf extremist group, a military commander said. The improvised device was made from a mortar shell and planted on a roadside where soldiers and military vehicles frequently pass in the village of Alat on the island of Jolo in Sulu province, said Brigadier General Gabriel Habacon. The device was wired to an electronic timer and was powerful enough to kill scores of people had it exploded. Members of the Explosive Ordnance Demolition squad of the Army's Task force Comet, which is under Southern Command chief Habacon, rushed to the scene and immediately detonated the powerful 60-mm mortar, said spokesman Major Bartolome Bacarro. "The explosive is made out of the 60-mm mortar, placed in front of Alvin's Pharmacy, near the mosque in Jolo," Bacarro said. Bacarro said the military is still trying to determine which group was responsible for the latest bomb assault in Jolo Monday. "We have not yet identified who were responsible for this attempted bombing in Jolo, although we do not discount the sinister plot of the remaining Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the area," he added.
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