Suspected Abu Sayyaf Bomber Arrested in Southern Philippines

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 22, 2002

Suspected Abu Sayyaf Bomber Arrested in Southern Philippines

A suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group has been nabbed in the southern Philippine province of Sultan Kudarat for allegedly plotting deadly bomb attacks, police said on Monday.

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A suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group has been nabbed in the southern Philippine province of Sultan Kudarat for allegedly plotting deadly bomb attacks, police said on Monday.

The suspect identified as Abdulbasit Usman was rounded up when the police raided a rebel hideout in a remote village in the province on Sunday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer on-line news reported.

Usman, possibly an Abu Sayyaf bomb expert once trained with terrorist cells in Afghanistan, was captured after months of surveillance work. Intelligence reports said he was an aide to AbuMuslim, an Abu Sayyaf leader arrested early this year after launching a bombing spree in the southern Philippines.

Usman was allegedly planning to launch a second wave of bombings, as the police seized weapons and home-made explosives from his hideout, regional police director Chief Superintendent Bartolome Baluyot was quoted as saying.

The Abu Sayyaf is a self-styled rebel group in Mindanao in the southern Philippines, notorious for its kidnap-for-ransom activities victimizing local Christians and foreign travelers in the area.

More than 1,000 US troops now in the southern Philippines for ajoint exercise targeting at the extremist group. The exercise willend on July 31, but the two governments have agreed to continue with their counter-terrorism operations later this year in the south.

There was a plan to deploy US troops on Sulu island, another major Abu Sayyaf lair in the south, but Philippine Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes ruled out the possibility late last week. The next round of war game will start in October.

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