A former Philippine Muslim rebel reportedly linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network has been arrested for the 2002 bombing of a bus that killed 17 people, officials said Friday. Kasim Usman, a former member of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was detained in the nearby town of Pikit Wednesday for the bus attack in nearby Kidapawan City that left 17 people dead and wounded 23 others. Local army commander Colonel Isagani Catchuela said Usman was identified by witnesses as the one who planted the bomb and that they were looking into his possible links with JI. "Since it was a terrorist act, we are looking into the possibility of his links to international terrorist groups like JI," Catchuela said. Usman was formerly a member of the MILF rebel group but later surrendered to the government and was working as a bus inspector at the time of the bombing, the colonel said.
| Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse... |
Local radio reports said Usman was suspected of being a key aide to Indonesian Islamic militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, the JI bomb-maker who was slain in a shootout with security forces in Mindanao last October. |