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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
3 terror suspects nabbed in Zambo
By Al Jacinto
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Security forces have captured three persons with alleged links to the terror group Abu Sayyaf in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines, officials said Tuesday.
Officials said one of the men was Pio De Vera, who is wanted by the military and police in connection with the series of Valentine's Day bombings that hit the financial districts of Manila and the cities of Davao and General Santos in the south.
De Vera, an alleged bomb expert, is said to be a senior member of the radical group Rajah Solaiman Movement, tagged as behind the February 14 bombings.
"There is an ongoing operation against the terrorists. Their capture is a joint effort between the military and the police. And this is part of the government's campaign against terrorism," said Army Colonel Edgardo Gidaya, head of the anti-terror Task Force Zamboanga.
Major Gamal Hayudini, a spokesman for the Southern Command, said De Vera was arrested along with his wife, Jean Hayag, near a pier in Zamboanga City Friday and another man, Aujin Marail, a senior member of the Abu Sayyaf was nabbed before sunrise Tuesday in the remote village of Dita by combined military and police forces.
"Civilians tipped off authorities about the presence of Marail, and from there we built up intelligence and planned his arrest. It is over now," Hayudini said.
He said Marail was one of 53 inmates who escaped last year at a prison facility in Basilan island.
"The arrest of the duo is a strong manifestation of our campaign to neutralize terrorists," Hayudini said.
De Vera, along with Hilarion Santos, leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement and Khadaffy Janjalani, chieftain of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, and several dozens more was charged last month by the Department of Justice in connection with the Valentine's Day attacks that killed 11 people and wounded 53 more.
Santos and seven of his followers were captured in Zamboanga City in October after Gidaya's group stormed their hideout in San Jose village.
The military implicated Santos in the kidnapping of 21 mostly Asian and Western holidaymakers in Malaysia's Sipadan island resort in 2000 and a foiled bombing in Manila in 2003.
Officials said the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiya are working increasingly with the Rajah Solaiman Movement.
Southern Command chief Lieutenant Edilberto Adan has previously said that the Rajah Solaiman Movement is the most radical next to the Abu Sayyaf group and has cells across the country.
He also linked the Rajah Solaiman to the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya and the homegrown Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Troops are hunting down senior Jemaah Islamiya bomb-makers Dulmatin and Umar Patek, believed to be hiding in the company of Janjalani's group in central Mindanao island. The duo masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people.
(December 21, 2005 issue)
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