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Philippine Police Arrest Suspected Militant Bomb Expert Linked to Jolo Church Attack
[BenarNews] A suspected 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...
 bomb expert linked to the deadly blast at a church in the southern Philippines in January 2019 was arrested in a village near Zamboanga city on Tuesday, police said.

The suspect, identified as Kalmi Ammad Mustala, 42, was nabbed mid-morning at a beachfront area near Recodo village, city police director Col. Rexmel Reyes said. Police officers from the city’s mobile force, backed by police and intelligence forces on Jolo Island, carried out the raid, he said.

"Kalmi Mustala, who was avoiding arrest ... is now behind bars as the Philippine National Police Zamboanga City Police Office steps up its series of Oplan Manhunt Charlie operations across the city," Reyes said.

"The operation was conducted against Mustala through a warrant of arrest issued by the Sulu court dated June 19, 2021, for cases of illegal possession of explosives," Reyes said. "The explosives were used in the commission of the crimes of double frustrated murder and double attempted murder."

Reyes said Mustala was an active member of the Abu Sayyaf Group based in the southern Sulu Islands, believed to be a "bomb expert involved in the twin bombing incident at Jolo Cathedral last Jan. 27, 2019."

Police did not release specific details about the incidents that led to the arrest warrant. "Frustrated murder" is described as an attack where the victim would have been killed if not for timely medical intervention.

The attack in January 2019 was carried out by an Indonesian couple who strapped bombs to their bodies before blowing themselves up inside the Jolo church, killing themselves and 21 others.

Police said the bombings were criminal masterminded by Abu Sayyaf leader Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who succeeded Isnilon Hapilon as the Philippine commander of the bully boy group known as Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
. Hapilon was among hundreds of bandidos forces of Evil killed in 2017 when he and others led a five-month bad boy siege of the southern city of Marawi.

Authorities have said they believe Sawadjaan was killed in a July 2020 clash with the military in Jolo even though his body was not recovered. His nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, retaliated by launching a twin kaboom in August 2020 that killed 14 in Jolo.

Reyes alleged that Mustala also was involved in kidnappings targeting foreigners, including Swiss national Lorenzo Vinciguerra and Dutchman Ewold Horn who were kidnapped in Tawi-Tawi sometime in February 2012 while bird watching.

Vinciguerra escaped after he fought his captors during a military operation in 2014, but Horn’s captors shot him dead when he tried to escape during another military operation in May 2019.

In addition, Mustala was linked to kidnappings involving Indonesian fishing boat crews, police said.
Posted by: trailing wife 2021-11-25
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=618365