Philippine security forces captured 2 Islamist militants in separate operations in Zamboanga City, several nautical miles south of Basilan province where military forces are currently fightg the Abu Sayyaf.
Police said an Abu Sayyaf militant, Johan Jaalam, was arrested Saturday. Officials say the militant faces a series of criminal charges.
A leader of the militant group Rajah Solaiman Movement – Melquiades Abrera II – was also nabbed on Friday in the village of Santa Barbara. Abrera, also known as Mikhail Abdulasis Abrera, was one of the organizers of the terrorist movement. It was not immediately known whether Abrera was planning an attack in Zamboanga.
The Rajah Solaiman Movement, founded by Ahmed Santos, a Muslim convert, seeks to establish an Islamic state in the Philippines and is working with the Abu Sayyaf.
In June 2008, Washington designated Santos and seven senior members of the Rajah Solaiman Movement – Angelo Trinidad, Pio de Vera, Redendo Dellosa, Feliciano de los Reyes, Dino Amor Pareja, Ricardo Ayeras and Reuben Lavilla – as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
[The Nation] As local residents celebrated Songkran [the traditional Thai New Year], unrest in the far South continued unabated, with several attacks yesterday in Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.
One incident, after midnight yesterday, saw a group of militants open fire at a local government office in Pattani's Mai Kaen district. A bomb was also detonated there, resulting in property damage.
Around dawn, four members of a paramilitary ranger unit were injured by a roadside bomb in Yarang district. Later that morning, a villager was shot by a gunman on a motorcycle in Nong Chik district. In Narathiwat a roadside time bomb went off in Rusoh district. There were no casualties.
Continued on Page 47
[Reuters] Islamist militants seized four Indonesians on the crew of a tugboat in the southern Philippines on Friday night, the third attack on slow moving vessels in about a month, as troops battled Muslim insurgents on a nearby island.
Major Filemon Tan said seven gunmen in a blue speed boat attacked two Indonesian flagged tugboats off the southernmost island of Sitangkay in Tawi-tawi and took the four crewmembers. Tan said, "We don't exactly know who took them but the only lawless group operating in that area is the Abu Sayyaf," adding ten Indonesians and four Malaysians were also abducted in two separate incidents early this month in the area.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said six other crewmembers were left behind but one was shot. It said, "He is in stable condition now," the foreign ministry said, adding Malaysian water police evacuated the injured crew to a hospital in eastern Sabah state, where the two vessels were towed to safety.
The military said the militants have been targeting foreign crewmembers of slow-moving boats because increased security has prevented them from penetrating resorts and coastal towns in Sabah.
The Abu Sayyaf has stepped up activities on the remote islands. Last week, rebels killed 18 soldiers and injured more than 50 others in an ambush on Basilan island, prompting a massive military offensive with artillery and aerial bombings. The Philippine military said 28 militants had died in the week of fighting.
On nearby Jolo island, rebels gave a final deadline of April 25 for payment of $6.50 million ransom for each of the two Canadians and a Norwegian captive or they will behead the three hostages.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: ryuge ||
04/17/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11145 views]
Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Philippine security forces captured 2 Islamist militants in separate operations in Zamboanga City, several nautical miles south of Basilan province where military forces are currently fightg the Abu Sayyaf.
[Reuters] Islamist militants seized four Indonesians on the crew of a tugboat in the southern Philippines on Friday night, the third attack on slow moving vessels in about a month, as troops battled Muslim insurgents on a nearby island.
