Attackers Kill 11 in Philippines

MANILA — Eleven people, at least three of them children, were killed in an attack believed to have been carried out by the militant groupAbu Sayyaf in retaliation for the recent arrests and deaths of several of its members, officials said Sunday.

About 70 members of Abu Sayyaf strafed several houses early Saturday in the southern village of Tubigan, in Basilan Province, an island in Mindanao where the group got its start, the police said.

The 11 dead included a 1-year-old, and 17 others, including four children, were seriously wounded. The attackers also burned down several houses. The attack was among the worst against civilians in nearly a decade, officials said.

Lt. Steffani Cacho, an army spokeswoman, said the attack might have been a “retaliatory action” by Abu Sayyaf after several of its leaders and members were either killed or arrested in a series of military and police operations in the past two weeks.

She added, however, that it could also have been prompted by a clan feud, which is common in Mindanao, the main Muslim area in the south.

Bienvenido Latag, police chief of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where Basilan is located, said the attackers had burned down the house of Leleng Laping, a chieftain of Tubigan village. Two of Mr. Laping’s children died in the fire.

Chief Latag said the victims had been asleep when their home was attacked.

Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman, said the attack may have been a response to the killing last year of Albader Parad, the leader of Abu Sayyaf, and the arrest of others in recent weeks. One of those arrested was involved in the 2001 kidnapping and murder of dozens of tourists in a resort in Palawan, in the western Philippines, the police said.

Officials said that two Chinese citizens and a Filipino had been rescued from Abu Sayyaf in Basilan the day before the Saturday attack.

Abu Sayyaf is thought to have originated in Basilan. In 2002, as part of its campaign against terrorism, the United States sent hundreds of troops to help the Philippines vanquish the group. Although officials said the effort drastically cut Abu Sayyaf’s members from about 1,200 in 2002 to about 400 now, the group remains a threat in the province.

Source: Nytimes

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Philippine Police Arrest Another Terror Suspect

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine police dealt a new blow to a notorious al-Qaida-linked group with the arrest of a suspected militant wanted in a string of kidnappings and killings, officials said Thursday.

Mujibar Alih Amon, an alleged logistics officer of the Abu Sayyafgroup, took part in the 2000 abduction of American Muslim convert Jeffrey Schilling, who later escaped, and 21 Western tourists and staff of a Malaysian resort earlier that year, national police chief Jesus Verzosa said.

Verzosa handed a 600,000 peso ($13,000) reward to an unidentified civilian informant who led police in a raid on Amon's hide-out Saturday on southern Jolo Island, a militant stronghold.

In the last six years of U.S.-backed counterterrorism strikes, Philippine security forces have killed or arrested more than 800 suspected militants, including 12 this month alone, said Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor.

The arrest of Amon, 26, came a day before troops killed senior Abu Sayyaf commander Albader Parad, who was charged with murder and kidnappings, including last year's abductions of three Red Cross workers.

Security forces last week captured another suspected militant, Jumadali Arad, who was allegedly the driver of a speedboat used to carry dozens of hostages the Abu Sayyaf snatched from a southwestern resort in 2001. They included three Americans, two of whom were later killed.

With the arrests and Parad's killing, Verzosa said authorities ''are very positive that the strength and the morale of the group has been drastically reduced.''

Police intelligence officials said Amon joined the Abu Sayyaf in 1998, seven years after it was founded with suspected al-Qaida funds, and received combat training.

He was trained in bomb-making by Umar Patek, an Indonesian terrorist suspect wanted in the 2002 Bali bombings, police said. Patek and Dulmatin, both members of the Indonesia-based militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, fled to the southern Philippines after the bomb attacks.

Amon allegedly planted a bomb on a road to Jolo airport that killed two army bomb squad members who tried to defuse it in 2003, police said. He also allegedly was part of a group of militants who seized two army soldiers and burned them alive that same year.

In 2001, police said he joined the militants who kidnapped six members of the Christian sect Jehovah's Witnesses, two of whom were later decapitated and their heads dumped in the Jolo market along with a note calling for a holy war.

The Abu Sayyaf, which is fighting to create an Islamic caliphate in the predominantly Christian nation, still has about 400 fighters, down from its peak of about 1,000 in the early 2000s, authorities said. It is on the U.S.-list of terrorist organizations.

Source: Nytimes.com

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