MANILA, 3 December 2003 — Police said yesterday they’ve foiled another plot by the extremist group Abu Sayyaf to seize foreign hostages — a plan allegedly revealed during interrogations of three suspected terrorists.

National Police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said the Abu Sayyaf had been plotting a kidnapping spree like one carried out on Malaysia’s Sipadan resort island in 2000, when the group abducted and held for several months 10 foreign tourists.

Ebdane said the plot was uncovered after “painstaking analysis of documents” taken from Edzmar Jalisan Hayudini, who was arrested in the southern city of Zamboanga on Oct. 27, and Yakub Basug, arrested Nov. 23 in the southwestern city of Puerto Princesa in Palawan province. Both are Filipino.

Interrogations of Indonesian citizen Taufek Refke — the alleged Philippine treasurer of the Southeast Asian Muslim militant group Jemaah Islamiyah — also helped uncover the plot. Refke was arrested Oct. 2.

Ebdane described Hayudini and Basug as Abu Sayyaf “intelligence officers.”

Hayudini was cornered near a fishing port in Sangali district, about 40 km east of Zamboanga City, while trying to flee to Jolo Island, a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group, the military said.

A military dosier also linked Hayudini to the spate of bombings in the cities of Zamboanga and General Santos and the kidnapping of 21 mostly Asian and Western holiday-makers from the island resort of Sipadan off Sabah, Malaysia in 2000.

Hayudini, a henchmen of rebel leader Khadaffy Janjalani, did not resist arrest when he was nabbed by government forces, officials said.

It was unclear if any weapons or explosives have been seized from the rebel, who is currently undergoing investigation in Zamboanga City.

A regional army commander, Maj. Gen. Trifonio Salazar, said soldiers were tracking down other Abu Sayyaf members believed to be hiding in the mountainous Zamboanga Peninsula.

Ebdane said Basug, the other terror suspect, was arrested while allegedly conducting surveillance on an “industrial site” in Palawan province, where the Abu Sayyaf planned to kidnap a group of “foreign executives.”

He didn’t disclose the site or the foreigners’ nationalities, but Palawan is close to a Shell offshore oil rig and is popular with tourists.The police chief said Hayudini — a close aide of Abu Sayyaf chief Khaddafy Janjalani — was allegedly assigned to study “high-value and high-impact targets for kidnapping-for-ransom, particularly foreign nationals.”

The suspects were also allegedly directed to monitor potential bombing targets and were in contact with Jemaah Islamiyah operatives in the Philippines, Ebdane said, without elaborating.

The government said it was looking for 31 Jemaah suspects who were training Muslim separatists in bomb-making.