ZAMBOANGA CITY, 6 October 2006 — Filipino troops have captured the Indonesian wife and two children of one of Asia’s most wanted Jemaah Islamiyah leader, Dulmatin, blamed for the deadly 2002 Bali and Jakarta bombings.
Istiada Bt. H. Oemar Sovie, alias Amenah Toha, and two of Dulmatin’s children were arrested in Patikul town, Jolo Island, where troops backed by US military intelligence are still pursuing Dulmatin and his alleged bombing partner Umar Patek, said one senior security official, who asked not to be named. “Dulmatin’s wife was seized in a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday. The raid also led the arrest of Abu Sayyaf militant Nadzmir Abduraji Amad in the neighboring town of Talipao,” said the official.
During interrogation at the military headquarters in Zamboanga City, the woman admitted that she is the wife of the 37-year old Dulmatin, also known as Amar Bin Usman, Arab News learned. Dulmatin’s wife reportedly said that she sneaked by boat into the southern Philippine island of Tawi-Tawi from Malaysia in August 2003. She was fetched by Azhar, a Jemaah militant, and brought to Jolo to join her husband.
The Philippine military said Dulmatin and Patek are being protected by the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group headed by Khadaffy Janjalani.
Jemaah militants were also blamed for the series of bomb attacks on Dec. 30, 2000, in metropolitan Manila when the nation was observing Rizal Day.
Twenty-two people were killed and 100 were wounded in the series of blasts, including one that destroyed a Light Rail Transit couch.
The US government has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Dulmatin, an electronics specialist who was said to have trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
Dulmatin fled to Mindanao in the southern Philippines soon after the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, according to Indonesian and Philippine intelligence officials.
