ZAMBOANGA CITY, 7 March 2005 — Two suspected Abu Sayyaf militants, including one implicated in the deadly Valentine’s Day bombings, were arrested in separate raids in the southern Philippines, officials said yesterday.
Soldiers arrested Ahib Buday in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao province before dawn on Saturday, army spokesman Maj. Bartolome Bacarro said.
The 40-year old militant was implicated in the bombing of a passenger in Manila’s financial district of Makati on Feb. 14. Six people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the explosion.
“Buday was involved in the bombing in Manila and he is currently being interrogated,” Bacarro told Arab News.
He said another militant named Rasidin Mohammad was also nabbed in the coastal village of Arena Blanco in Zamboanga City on Friday. The military implicated Mohammad in the kidnapping of three US and 17 Filipino holiday-makers in the posh Dos Palmas resort in Palawan in 2001 and a dozen farmers in the southern island of Basilan in 2002.
“Their arrest is part of the government campaign in fighting terrorism,” Bacarro said.
It was not immediately known if Mohammad or Buday were also involved in other bombings in the southern Philippines. Two other bombs also exploded in the southern port cities of General Santos and Davao on Valentine’s Day that killed several civilians.
Other reports said Buday is being implicated in the bombing of the SM Megamall in May 2000 in Manila.
Two other Makati blast suspects, Gamal Baharan and Angelo Trinidad, were earlier arrested separately in Manila. A third suspect, Gappal Bana, surrendered last week to authorities in Libmanan, Camarines Sur.
The Abu Sayyaf, which also appears on the United States’ list of terror groups, claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed more than 100 people on a ferry leaving Manila in February last year, in the worst known terrorist attack in the Philippines.
Crowded Market
Meanwhile, army troops with bomb-sniffing dogs dubbed K-9s found a grenade that was set to explode in a crowded public market, foiling what was believed to have been a retaliatory attack by kidnappers in the southern city of Tacurong.
The grenade was found Saturday afternoon near a stall in the city market and safely defused, military spokesman Lt. Col. Buenaventura Pascual said.
The grenade was placed in a box with some mechanism that would make it go off if it was slightly moved, Pascual said.
About a week ago, a 60mm mortar round attached to a timer was found by a waitress in a restaurant in the same market and defused by authorities, military officials said.
The explosives may have been planted by suspected members of the Pentagon, a kidnap gang composed of former Muslim rebels that is on a US list of terror groups, military officials said.
Military officials believe the group wanted to avenge the death of five members, who were slain in a shootout with troops last month in Maguindanao province, near Tacurong in the province of Sultan Kudarat.
Many of the kidnappers’ past victims were traders from Tacurong, 950 kilometers southeast of Manila.
