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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippines catches a live one |
| 2005-03-22 |
| Philippine security forces said on Tuesday they arrested an Indonesian suspected of being a bomb expert for regional Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militants who trained local Muslim rebels for a deadly attack in Manila last month. News of the arrest on March 16 came as soldiers and police were on full alert with Filipinos in the mainly Roman Catholic country praying, shopping and travelling in their millions during this week's observance of Easter. Police have warned of fresh plots to bomb Manila after Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to al Qaeda and JI, vowed revenge for comrades killed by security forces after a prison uprising. The Indonesian, identified as Jeqi or Zaggi, was arrested on a bombing-related warrant at an army checkpoint in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town on the southern island of Mindanao, the army said. "He is a big fish," military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual told Reuters. "He was responsible for training the people involved in the Makati attack." Pascual said the suspect overheard mobile phone calls by Abu Sayyaf leaders Khaddafy Janjalani and Abu Solaiman ordering blasts in Manila's Makati business district and two southern cities on Feb. 14 that killed 13 people and wounded 150. Security forces plan to present the Indonesian suspect to the media at about 2 p.m. (0600 GMT) on Tuesday. Pascual said the suspect trained Abu Sayyaf members in explosives at a JI enclave inside a camp on Mindanao run by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group with about 12,000 fighters. The MILF, which is due to restart peace talks hosted by Malaysia, insists it has cut all ties with foreign militants and has shunned calls from Abu Sayyaf leaders to rejoin the war for an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. But security analysts say connections between members of JI, Abu Sayyaf and the MILF can be very informal and personal. An Abu Sayyaf spokesman said in a statement last week the group would "bring the war to Manila" in response to an assault by police on a jail where suspected militants were holed up for a day after killing three guards. Police killed 22 prisoners in the raid, including several suspected Abu Sayyaf commanders. "This is a real threat," General Efren Abu, the military's chief of staff, said on Monday after police released sketches of suspected rebels sent to stage bombings in Manila over Easter. "This has been done in the past and we're taking it seriously." The three deadly bombings in shopping malls and transport terminals in mid-February happened during a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf camps on the remote southwestern island of Jolo after the rebels ambushed an army convoy. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |