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| Terror Networks |
| Two more MILF thugs and a jerk arrested in General Santos blast |
| 2002-04-24 |
| Police have made three more arrests and seized explosives in their hunt for the perpetrators of deadly weekend bombings which killed 15 in this bustling southern city. The three Muslim men were nabbed in a pre-dawn raid Wednesday on a house in General Santos where three bomb blasts on Sunday and Monday left 15 dead and wounded 60 others. The house also served as an office for a Muslim cooperative, the Bangsa Moro (Muslim) Women's Association, regional police chief Senior Superintendent Bartolome Baluyot said. Baluyot said they were trying to establish whether the three men had any links to Muslim rebel groups fighting the government in the south and possibly communist insurgents. Two of those arrested, Abubakar Amil Hassan, 47 and Arsol Ginta, 31, were identified as members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim separatist group. The third suspect, Jehjon Macalinsan, 18, admitted he had phoned in a fake bomb threat to a telecommunications company on Tuesday, Baluyot added. The phoned bomb threat had been traced to Macalinsan and the house had already been under surveillance by authorities. Police were checking if the Bangsa Moro Women's Association was a front for the 12,500-strong MILF, which has forged a ceasefire pact with the government pending peace talks. Seized at the house were a 60mm mortar round, a pistol and documents from the MILF and the communist insurgent National Democratic Front (NDF) and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA.) The mortar round was similar to the explosive used in the deadliest of three bomb blasts to hit General Santos City. A mortar round? At the Women's Association? Kinda hard to explain, isn't it? What do you say? "It's not mine. It's my Mom's"? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |