|
Bomb plot foiled in southern Philippines
Philippine security forces have arrested a suspected Islamist bombmaker who had planned to attack centres on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, the national police chief said on Friday.Guiamalodin Edsrafil was captured at his hideout on Tuesday as he was preparing to carry out an attack on the main army base in the autonomous Muslim region on the island, police Director General Jesus Verzosa said. "I am happy to announce that government security forces have foiled an elaborate plan by separatist and extremist groups to sow terror in some key cities in the country," Verzosa said in a statement. He said Edsrafil belonged to a rogue unit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim guerrilla group in the south of the mainly Catholic state. He also had links with the smaller Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, Verzosa said. Edsrafil was arrested on murder charges related to bomb attacks from 2005 until July this year, Verzosa said. Verzosa said Edsrafil had confessed that Abu Sayyaf had funded the bombing plot. The funds were sent by an Abu Sayyaf leader through the ATM account of a MILF rebel on Nov. 27. On Friday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo scrapped a planned visit to soldiers engaged in fighting in Cotabato City after a bomb attack in the city on Thursday and the discovery of a crude bomb near the place she was to visit, her spokesman Jesus Dureza told reporters. Posted by: ryuge 2008-12-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=257060 |