ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 5, 2008) – Government soldiers, aided by a former Abu Sayyaf militant, have captured Wednesday a sub-leader of the terrorist group tied to Jemaah Islamiya in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Officials said Sakirin Andalin Sali, who is facing a string of murder charges, was nabbed at around 9.45 a.m. in the town of Jolo in Sulu Island. “Sali was positively identified by a former Abu Sayyaf member, who is now working for the JTFC,” said Army Major Eugene Batara, a regional military spokesman.
Batara was referring to the military’s Joint Task Force Comet based in Sulu Island.
“The apprehension was successfully conducted with all units under the Joint Task Force Comet providing information about the suspect,” Batara said. “Sali did not offer any resistance when apprehended by the troops, who were quickly organized when information was received that the said personality is in the vicinity of Jolo town.”
He said Sali, who has P2 million bounties on his head, was under Abu Sayyaf leader Galib Andang and involved in kidnappings and attacks on soldiers on the island.
Andang, captured in 2003 in Sulu, was killed along with 22 mostly Abu Sayyaf prisoners in 2005 after police commandos ended an uprising at a maximum security prison in Manila.
Andang was one of Abu Sayyaf leaders who led group that kidnapped 21 Western tourists and local resort workers on the Malaysian island of Sipadan in 2001 and another resort in the central Philippines where 20 guests, including three US citizens were seized.
Authorities have tagged the Abu Sayyaf group in the February 2004 bombing of the Super Ferry 14, which killed more than 100 people in the worst maritime terrorist attack in the Philippines.
The 10,192-ton ship was sailing out of Manila, with about 900 passengers and crew, when a television set filled with TNT exploded. The Abu Sayyaf owned up the bombing.
The group was also behind the spate of kidnappings and bomb attacks across Mindanao, although the military said the number of militants had dwindled in recent years with the killings of many of its known commanders, including their leader Khadaffy Janjalani.
The Abu Sayyaf – which means The Bearer of the Sword - is one of four Moro rebel groups operating mostly in the southern Philippines.
It has been labeled a terrorist organization by both Manila and Washington, and is believed by the US to have links with the al-Qaeda terror network. The Philippine government, aided by the US military, has deployed thousands of troops in the south in an effort to eradicate Abu Sayyaf.
A faction of the Abu Sayyaf is still holding an aid worker, Millet Mendoza, who was kidnapping almost two month ago in Basilan Island, south of Zamboanga City. (Mindanao Examiner)
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