[Inquirer] Philippine police on Tuesday arrested four women they said were wives of Abu Sayyaf commanders who took care of their financial transactions, helped obtain guns and bomb parts, and arranged the travels of foreign militants into the country. The women were nabbed in raids on houses in southern Zamboanga City where authorities seized two grenades, a bag of suspected ammonium nitrate and bomb-making parts.The women worked under Abu Sayyaf leader Hajan Sawadjaan, the main suspect in the January 27 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral that killed 23 people in nearby Sulu province’s capital town of Jolo. The cathedral attack by two suspected suicide bombers triggered the latest military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf.
Sawadjaan has been regarded as the current leader of small insurgent groups aligned with the Islamic State. Police officials suspect he may be harboring at least one more potential suicide attacker, an Arab militant, in his jungle encampment near mountainous Ptikul town in Sulu.