Philippine arrests top Al-Qaeda linked militant

Manila: Philippine authorities have arrested a founding member of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group blamed for some of the worst terror attacks in the region, security officials said yesterday.
Ahmadsali Asmad Badron was arrested on Saturday in the remote Tawi-Tawi islands in the southern Philippines.
Police criminal investigation regional chief Edgar Danao said Badron was one of the founding members of Abu Sayyaf, which was founded in the 1990s using seed money from Al-Qaeda.
Along with one of his cousins Badron worked alongside Galib Andang, the notorious Abu Sayyaf leader well known as "Commander Robot", under whom the group carried out a daring cross-border raid on a Malaysian resort in April 2000 and kidnapped dozens of foreign tourists.
The kidnapping gained Abu Sayyaf international notoriety even as the hostages were freed in batches after millions were paid following ransom negotiations brokered by Libya, officials said.
“Badron was among the trusted members of (Abu Sayyaf) who made millions of pesos in ransom money collected from their operations," Danao said.
Subsequent US-backed operations against Abu Sayyaf led to the killing of key leaders, while many others including Andang were arrested, but later killed in a botched attempt to escape in 2005.
Meanwhile, hundreds of army soldiers have been deployed to hunt down a group of gunmen who killed 10 soldiers in a single day, officials said yesterday.
A battalion of 600 army soldiers arrived late Saturday on Basilan, where 10 soldiers were killed and 17 others wounded by dozens of gunmen who were backed by militants, military officials said. A further 600 soldiers will be sent to the island this week to help pursue the fleeing gunmen, several of whom were believed killed in Thursday's fierce fighting in mountainous Sumisip town.
In response to the massive army deployment, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is engaged in peace talks with the government, asked military commanders to notify them of their offensives to avoid accidental clashes with its Basilan-based rebel forces.
Regional army spokesman Capt. Albert Caber said the assaults would target the gunmen behind Thursday's attacks on army troops and recent deadly ambushes on workers of a vast rubber plantation in Sumisip in Basilan, about 550 miles (880 kilometers) south of Manila. The flag-draped remains of the soldiers killed in Sumisip were flown to Manila Saturday and given honors by military commanders, who vowed to get justice. "There will be no peace talks with these lawless elements," Caber said.
Officials said the gunmen involved in Thursday's fighting were led by an outlaw, a former security officer of the Sumisip rubber plantation who has turned against it in a long-running feud. Army troops raided the outlaw's hideout in the forested outskirts of Sumisip early Thursday, sparking clashes that killed eight soldiers and gunmen. Two more soldiers were killed when gunmen opened fire on army reinforcements.
The outlaw was believed to have been backed on Thursday by his armed relatives and friends, some of whom belonged to the Abu Sayyaf and MILF, according to military officials.
Government and rebel representatives in a cease-fire body scrambled to prevent the MILF's main guerrilla force, which was encamped in Al-Barka town near Sumisip from getting involved as the fighting raged Thursday, said a military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
In October, army troops seeking to arrest a fugitive rebel commander clashed with MILF's forces in Al Barka, sparking a major clash that killed 19 soldiers, one of the largest army losses in a single clash in years. President Benigno Aquino III rejected calls for him to end the cease-fire and decided to continue talks with the Moro rebel group.