Philippine authorities have arrested an Arab missionary who is suspected of being a member of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network in the southern island of Mindanao, military officials said on Wednesday. The man, Hassan al-Bakre, 55, was detained by teams of immigration and security officials on suspicion of providing funds to Muslim rebels, said Marine Corps commandant Major-General Emmanuel Teodosio. "He is a suspected member of al Qaeda," Teodosio told reporters in the southern port city of Zamboanga. "We will provide you with more details about the arrest after al-Bakre’s initial debriefing is completed."
| "We'd like to clean him up a bit." |
Another security officer said al-Bakre was believed to be a Saudi Arabian but authorities were still trying to confirm his nationality. A spokesman for a Philippine Muslim rebel group said al-Bakre was an Egyptian and he had no connection with them or any other militants.
| Just a simple fisherman, 10,000 miles from home... |
Teodosio said al-Bakre, who was placed under surveillance a month ago, was arrested on Tuesday in a village known as a stronghold of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Muslim separatist rebels. The military said al-Bakre had made trips to Camp Omar, a rebel enclave in the Mindanao region, three months ago where he taught Arabic, Islamic studies and bomb-making. "Based on his own accounts, more than 500 students completed the courses he had supervised," a senior navy official told reporters. He said al-Bakre had identified five Egyptian and seven Indonesian instructors at the MILF camp. But a rebel spokesman said al-Bakre was a fisherman who had lived in the area for a long time and was married to a Philippine Muslim woman. "We have nothing to do with him," said the spokesman, Eid Kabalu. "He’s not even a missionary."
"He’s not a terrorist," said Kabalu. "He’s a simple-living man. People there know him to be a fisherman, not a bomb-maker."
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