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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Filipino authorities remain on the
lookout for more foreigners with ties to the Saudi terror group, al-Qaeda,
after security forces arrested an Arab missionary suspected of being
a terrorist.
“We are searching for more and
authorities have intensified its intelligence operations to track
down and neutralize these foreign terrorists,” one intelligence
officer told the regional newspaper, the Mindanao Examiner.
Government agents, backed by
military and police forces, arrested an alleged Egyptian al-Qaeda
operative in his apartment early Wednesday in Cotabato City.
Security forces swooped down on
the apartment and arrested Mohammad Said who also uses the aliases
Mohammad Sayed and Abu Husein.
Recovered from his apartment were
several improvised explosive devices, including a book with Arabic
texts with its hollowed pages fitted with a bomb.
Also seized from the apartment
were detonating cords, alarm clocks, batteries, 60mm mortar rocket,
high-explosive ammunition, 3 pounds of chemical believed to be
explosives, two kilos of ball bearings to be used as shrapnel for an
IED, and a Moro Islamic Liberation Front combat manual.
Officials said the Egyptian is
detained for interrogation in a security base in Cotabato City,
where several Turkish and Middle Eastern nationals have been
arrested over the last five years.
Officials did not give details
about the foreigner or whether he has connections with the MILF, the
Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group currently negotiating
peace with Manila.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu has
denied any links with Said, whom he said is a preacher and a good
man. “He has been living in Cotabato the past years and we hear
nothing bad about him. He is preaching Islam and that is what we
know of this man they now tag as terrorist,” he told the Mindanao
Examiner.
Little was known about Said and
officials declined to give any formal statement about his arrest or
if he was planning to mount terror attacks. His arrest came several
days later after the police said terrorists were planning attacks
and that among those targeted are Westerners in the Mindanao area.
--Al Jacinto
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