ZAMBOANGA CITY, 17 October 2006 — Police yesterday lodged a criminal complaint 20 militants, including two top Jemaah Islamiyah leaders, over a bomb attack that wounded four people at a market in the southern Philippines.
Included in the attempted murder complaint were Indonesian terror suspects Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who allegedly plotted the bombing last Tuesday in Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat province. Police officials say at least two militants involved in the attack have surrendered and say they will testify that Dulmatin and Patek ordered the bombing of Tacurong and at least seven other targets on Oct. 10.
Last week’s bomb, a mortar shell with a cell phone trigger, was found by a guard and taken to an isolated spot, where it exploded and wounded four people, including some women emerging from a public toilet, said regional police director German Doria.
It was among three recent bombings in central Mindanao that authorities believe were planned by Dulmatin and Patek, believed to belong to the Al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.
The same suspects are to be named in criminal complaints to be filed this week in connection with the other attacks, including a bombing the same day that killed six people and wounded 29 others in thetown of Makilala in North Cotabato province.
Military and police officials say the attacks could be an attempt by the militants to divert the military’s focus from an offensive against Abu Sayyaf extremist rebels and Indonesian militants, including Dulmatin and Patek, on the southern island of Jolo.
They also could be in retaliation for the recent capture of Dulmatin’s wife and two sons in Jolo.
Maj. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, commander of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, visited troops in Jolo yesterday and urged them “to get Dulmatin and Patek and Janjalani, dead or alive.”
Although hundreds of the military’s elite units are helping in the hunt, the three militants have remained elusive. On Sunday, suspected militants even sneaked into a police compound in downtown Jolo and exploded a bomb, injuring three people.
