ZAMBOANGA CITY, 6 December 2004 — The military yesterday claimed to have foiled a new wave of terror attacks in the country’s south when troops stormed a suspected extremist hide-out in Zamboanga City and arrested three of the alleged plotters.
Arrested were three suspected members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, which had been blamed for many cases of kidnappings and beheadings in Zamboanga and the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo.
The raid shortly before 2 a.m. yesterday in the coastal village of Taluksangay came barely 10 hours after security forces gunned down a suspected Abu Sayyaf member Bahan Madhar and arrested four other suspects near downtown Zamboanga City, said Marine spokesman Capt. Rommel Abrau.
He said two other Abu Sayyaf gunmen were able to escape from the latest operation in Taluksangay village.
Abrau identified those who escaped as Abu Ibrahim, leader of an Abu Sayyaf unit in Zamboanga City, and a man named Dujana.
The military tagged Bahan Madhar as one of those behind the series of bombings in Zamboanga City that killed dozens of civilians and a US soldier participating in an anti-terrorism training with Filipino troops in 2002.
The US has included the Abu Sayyaf in its list of foreign terrorists organization and offered as much as $5-million bounty for the capture of its chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, and other leaders.
