MANILA - The Philippine military said on Thursday it arrested a man suspected of trying to smuggle 6,000 detonators from the southwestern island of Jolo, where troops are pursuing a group of Muslim rebels linked to Al Qaeda. “It is highly possible that the explosives would be used by the terrorists in their bombing attacks,” Brigadier-General Alexander Aleo, the commander on Jolo, told reporters. | Nonesense! I'm sure he was just going to sell them to help his brother with school expenses and his widowed mother. He's such a good boy, everyone says so. |
Aleo said the suspect and an unidentified female companion carried backpacks aboard a passenger ferry that was bound for the nearby island of Tawi-tawi, adding each bag held 30 boxes of Indian-made detonators. The woman eluded arrest. The detonators were found when a Marine private, suspicious of the contents of the suspectÂ’s backpack, searched it and then alerted his companions to comb the ferry, Aleo said.
Last week, government officials said the military offensive on Jolo against rebels from the Abu Sayyaf group might have foiled a plan to launch bombings in the capital, Manila. Hundreds of troops, backed by US intelligence, have been searching the hilly jungles near Indanan town for Abu Sayyaf members believed to be hiding with two key suspects in the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali. |