Government troops have arrested an alleged Abu Sayyaf leader linked to the abduction of three American tourists in the southern Philippines, the military said on Thursday. Usman Lijal and a bodyguard were detained in a raid of his hideout at a Muslim community on the outskirts of this southern city late Wednesday, said Major General Trifonio Salazar, head of the Armyâs First Infantry Division. The raiders also seized weapons from the house, where at least one other suspect escaped, the general told reporters. âWe finally got him,â Salazar said. âItâs the result of a long surveillance operation that started on (the nearby island of) Basilan. Civilian informants provided us with vital information,â he added.
Lijal is a suspect in the May 2001 kidnapping of a group of Filipino and western tourists at an island resort off the western island of Palawan, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Lucero. Lucero told AFP Lijalâs group supported the kidnappers in Basilan, providing them with guns, ammunition and food. The US government later blacklisted the Abu Sayyaf as a âforeign terrorist organization,â dispatched a small unit of special forces to help train Filipino soldiers on Basilan, and offered bounties for its top leaders. The rebel group was drummed out of its stronghold and a number of its top leaders were later arrested or killed elsewhere. Lucero said there are also standing arrest warrants against Lijal for the abduction of two Belgian tourists and a British girl near Zamboanga in the 1990s. All three were later ransomed off. |