 | Lots of interesting info in this article. JI, Abu Sayyaf, MILF, and a bomb in a soy-sauce bottle. It looks like the Philippine coppers are getting better intel too. |
PALIMBANG, Sultan Kudarat: Police thwarted an apparent bombing attempt by the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf with the arrest of two men, a suspected terrorist and an informer, Thursday night. Chief Supt. Antonio Billones, the Central Mindanao regional police chief, said the arrest of Tanto Butuan, who allegedly planted a "signature" terrorist bomb at the house of Mayor Labualas Mamansual's sister, came a day after a similar bomb was retrieved from a packed public market in Midsayap, North Cotabato and the CoÂÂtabato City Cathedral on WedÂnesday. Billones said it was the sixth improvised bomb recovered here since December 23, which he said might seem uncommon for a remote town like PaÂlimbang.
| Six IEDs should be uncommon everywhere. |
"But since the July 5 landing here of Abu Sayyaf chief, Khaddafy Janjalani, and 60 of his heavily armed men, this town has turned into a flashÂpoint in the war on terror," he told reporters.
| "Khaddafy's back and there's gonna be trouble..." |
Billones said the latest find appeared to have validated recent intelligent reports that a group of fresh Jemaah Islamiya graduates were in Mindanao on a bombing mission hand in glove with the Abu Sayyaf and a faction of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front. "We suspect that the deadly December 12 bombing in General Santos City was a dry-run operation," he said. Billones presented here BuÂtuan and suspected Abu SayÂÂyaf spy Mohamad Ali Gandawali, and Gen Bustria, an alleged rapist and tagged as Palimbang's No. 3 most wanÂted criminal, to Secretary Jesus Dureza, presidential assistant for Mindanao. "The arrest of a suspected Abu Sayyaf bomber and a spy only signifies that the people now trust and has confidence in our police and military, and at the same time, shows our security forces do their duties and functions better and efficiently," Dureza said. He urged the people, especially the evacuees, to rise up and join in the fight against terrorism. "Not by arms, but by giving information to the police and the military, which will result in the arrest or killing of militants and thwart bomb attacks," Dureza added.
Butuan was nabbed shortly after putting a homemade bomb in the kitchen of Bai Mona Mamansual's house in Barangay Malisbong, where Kagawad Nur Mamansual was preparing to go to bed. Packed with shrapnel and rigged to a timing device, the powerful improvised explosive device was concealed in a two-liter plastic soy-sauce container, which was discovered by a boy playing nearby. Gandawali, a resident of Barangay Libua, a known Abu Sayyaf haven, was tagged by Supt. Kadil Masahod, Palimbang police chief, as a spy for Abu Sayyaf No. 2 man Hapilon, who terrorist mission here was broken up in a police-backed Army operation on January 7. Police are readying charges of double murder and illegal possession of explosives against Butuan and Gandawali for the firing-squad killing of two villagers and exploding of rife grenades in a series of terrorist attacks here in December. |