MANILA, 22 July 2006 — Security forces captured yesterday a notorious bandit leader implicated in a series of kidnappings and killings in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Police officers, backed by Marine soldiers, swooped on a hideout in Iligan city and arrested Elias Makil, who had been blamed for the kidnapping of Lanao Del Norte province’s poll official Disalungan Pulala last month.
“He was finally captured after a long surveillance operation. Troops are tracking down the rest of his gang,” Brig. Gen. Mohamad Dolorfino, deputy commander of the military’s Southern Command, told Arab News.
Dolorfino said the bandit leader is being interrogated over a spate of attacks on soldiers and highway robberies in Lanao del Norte. The authorities caught up with Makil after a botched kidnapped attempt on three traders, who outwitted the bandits and sought help from the military in Iligan.
Pulala was kidnapped while on his way to mosque in Iligan. He was freed days later in the remote village of Ulangu in the town of Balo’i in nearby Lanao del Sur province, reportedly for a 100,000-peso ransom.
Last month, gunmen also seized Pala-o Diamla, a court sheriff in Marawi in Lanao de Sur allegedly on orders of a politician who lost in the May 2004 elections. Diamla was freed a week later after Moro Islamic Liberation Front separatist fighters, in coordination with government soldiers, threatened to assault the kidnappers’ hideout in the province.
The MILF, the country’s largest Muslim separatist rebel group, forged an agreement with the government in 2004 that paved the way for rebel forces to help hunt down terrorists and criminal elements in areas where the MILF is actively operating.
Kidnapping for ransom in the southern region has become a lucrative business with many groups operating independently. The proliferation of illegal weapons also aggravated the problem of the peace and order in the Muslim autonomous region.
