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Philippines says arrests Indonesian Jemaah Islamiah bomber
Philippine security forces said on Tuesday they arrested an Indonesian suspected of being a bomb expert for regional Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militants who trained local Muslim rebels for a deadly attack in Manila last month.
News of the arrest on March 16 came as soldiers and police were on full alert with Filipinos praying, shopping and traveling in their millions during this week's observance of Easter in the mainly Roman Catholic country.
Police have warned of fresh plots to bomb Manila after Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to al Qaeda and JI, vowed revenge for comrades killed by security forces after a prison uprising.
The Indonesian -- identified as Rohmat with the aliases "Zaki," "Hamdan" and "Akil" -- was arrested on a bombing-related warrant at an army checkpoint in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town on the southern island of Mindanao, the military said in a statement.
"He is a big fish," said army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual. "He was responsible for training the people involved in the Makati attack."
Pascual said Rohmat heard mobile phone calls by Abu Sayyaf leaders Khaddafy Janjalani and Abu Solaiman ordering coordinated blasts in Manila's Makati business district and two southern cities on Feb. 14 that killed 13 people and wounded 150.
Abu Sayyaf, the smallest of several Muslim rebel groups in the southern Philippines, was known mainly for kidnappings until it planted a bomb on a ferry in February 2004. The country's worst terror attack killed at least 116 people.
Rohmat, who has yet to be charged over the Valentine's Day bombings and with immigration offences after entering the Philippines illegally in January 2000, was described as "the JI liaison officer" to Abu Sayyaf.
JI is blamed for several attacks in the region, including the Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people.
EASTER THREAT
"We are not saying that with the arrest of Zaki that the threat of terrorism is gone," Lieutenant-General Edilberto Adan, the military's deputy chief of staff, told reporters after the Indonesian was paraded for the media.
"But we have dealt a big blow to their organization."
A Filipino arrested with Rohmat was later released, while two other suspects escaped the army checkpoint on a motorcycle.
Pascual said Rohmat trained Abu Sayyaf members in explosives at a JI enclave inside a camp on Mindanao run by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group with about 12,000 fighters.
The MILF, which is due to restart peace talks hosted by Malaysia, insists it has cut all ties with foreign militants and has shunned calls from Abu Sayyaf leaders to rejoin the war for an Islamic state in the southern Philippines.
But security analysts say connections between members of JI, Abu Sayyaf and the MILF can be very informal and personal. An Abu Sayyaf statement last week vowed to "bring the war to Manila" in response to an assault by police on a jail where militants were holed up for a day after killing three guards.
Police killed 22 prisoners in the raid, including several suspected Abu Sayyaf commanders.
On Monday, police released sketches of suspected rebels sent to stage bombings in Manila over Easter. The three blasts in mid-February at crowded shopping malls and transport terminals happened during a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf camps on the remote southwestern island of Jolo after the rebels ambushed an army convoy. |
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