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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippine army arrests bomb suspect with JI links |
| 2011-04-14 |
| [Straits Times] A SUSPECTED bad boy believed to be a liaison between Mohammedan rebels and a Southeast Asian terrorist network was tossed in the calaboose in the restive southern Philippines, officials said on Wednesday. Security forces apprehended Abi Pamanay in the central part of Mindanao Island on Tuesday based on an arrest warrant for murder in connection with bombing attacks, said Philippine army chief Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz. Mr Ortiz accused Pamanay of being a member of the largest Mohammedan separatist group and a 'senior associate' of notorious bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman, who has been on the run for his alleged links with the Indonesian-based terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... group, both blamed for a series of deadly attacks across the region. Pamanay was being interrogated after his arrest in Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat province, Mr Ortiz said. Other officials were quoted as saying he did not resist arrest and had denied the charges against him. Usman is a Filipino on the US State Department's list of most-wanted faceless myrmidons who carries a US$1 million (S$1.2 million) bounty. Pak military intelligence officers last year claimed that Usman was killed with other forces of Evil in a US drone strike in Pak tribal regions, but a Philippine military official later denied it, saying that Usman had been sighted near southern Maguindanao province. |
| Posted by:Fred |