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COTABATO CITY: Police in Cotabato said Wednesday they
had arrested a man believed to be of Middle Eastern descent
allegedly plotting a bomb attack.
Initial reports identified the
suspect as Mohamad Said, a 40-year old Egyptian national who also
uses the aliases of Abu Husein and Mohamed Sayed.
He was arrested during a raid of
a unit at the Women Islamic Center Apartment at Campo Muslim,
Barangay Mother Bagua, the reports said.
Recovered from Mohamad was an
explosive device fashioned from a 60-millimeter mortar attached to a
timing device, which was later safely detonated.
Mohamad is undergoing
interrogation at police headquarters in Cotabato and it was not
clear whether he was acting alone or is affiliated with any groups.
The suspect was collared by a
team from the joint Task Group Usig composed of elements from the
Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and from the
army’s Sixth Infantry Division.
Supt. Dave Ombao, the provincial
officer of the CIDG team in Cotabato City said the operation was
carried out following a tip from an informant on the presence of a
suspicious looking foreigner.
Several Muslim armed groups
operate in the south, including the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF), which is now engaged in peace talks with
government and the smaller Abu Sayyaf gang blamed for the
country’s worst terrorist attacks.
Before agreeing to the peace
talks with Manila, the MILF in the past had admitted that foreign
“students” had studied in its religious schools. It, however,
has repeatedly denied formal links with foreign militants, including
those from the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group.
The Abu Sayyaf’s size meanwhile
has been reduced to the low hundreds from a high of more than 1,000
fighters five years ago, military officials have said.
Remnants from the group are
however believed to be hiding out in the southern islands with JI
militants Dulmatin and Umar Patek, Indonesian nationals wanted for
the October 2002 bombings in Indonesia.
Said’s arrest came in the wake
of an advisory from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency
that maintains high-terror alert level warning in the whole Mindanao
area.
--Anthony Vargas, with AFP
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