Dulmatin Child Tries To Flee From RP Military Hospital

A Filipino soldier restrains one of four children of Indonesian Jemaah Islamiya bomber, Dulmatin, on Friday 11 May 2007, she she tries to flee from a military hospital in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines. Troops raided a hideout of Jemaah Islamiya on Tawi-Tawi island near Sabah, Malaysia and found the children, ages 2, 5, 7 and 9. Two Filipino women who acted as guardians of the children are currently being investigated by the military. Troops are tracking down Dulmatin. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 11 May) – One of four children of Jemaah Islamiya bomber Dulmatin tried to flee Friday from a military hospital in Zamboanga City after breaking down while undergoing a medical check-up.

The children - one boy and three girls ages 2, 5, 7 and 9 - were take into military custody after soldiers and policemen raided Friday a hideout of Jemaah Islamiya in the southern island of Tawi-Tawi near the Sabah, Malaysia border.

Two Filipino women who acted as guardians of the children are currently being investigated by the military.

The children arrived in Zamboanga City onboard a small Philippine military plane from Tawi-Tawi and taken to a hospital inside the tightly guarded Edwin Andrews Air Base.

The children broke down in tears, after they saw armed soldiers around them and one of them, the eldest, tried to flee after she failed to find her adult companion.

One Filipino intelligence operative restrained her.

A local army spokesman, Lt. Mike Rayman, said the children would be handed over to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila. “We will hand over the children to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila after their medical check up in Zamboanga,” he said.

Rayman said the children were also fed with hamburgers and fresh milk.

The children were previously thought to be hiding with the Abu Sayyaf in Jolo island, where Dulmatin’s wife, Istiada Bt. H. Oemar Sovie, alias Amenah Toha, and her two children had been arrested in October last year.

Dulmatin, also known as Amar Bin Usman, is one of several Indonesian terrorists, including Umar Patek, hiding in Jolo island with the Abu Sayyaf. Dulmatin and Patek are wanted for the October 2002 bombings in the resort Indonesian island of Bali in which 202 mostly foreign tourists were killed.

The Jemaah Islamiya is also believed as behind the 2004 bombing of a Filipino ferry off Manila Bay that killed 116 people-the second-worst terrorist attack in Southeast Asia after the 2002 Bali bombs.

The group was largely blamed by Philippine authorities in a series of bombings in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 and wounded more than 100 people. One of the bombs exploded at an open square less than a hundred meters from the U.S. Embassy.

The U.S. has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Dulmatin, an electronics specialist with training in al-Qa'eda camps in Afghanistan. He is a senior figure in the Jemaah Islamiya terrorist organization. (With reports from Chris Navarra and Juan Magtanggol)