Philippine Abu Sayyaf says no dearth of bombers

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 01, 2004

Philippine Abu Sayyaf says no dearth of bombers

The Abu Sayyaf Muslim militant group in the Philippines has a long line of bombers ready to die in attacks on Manila, a newspaper on Thursday quoted the outfit's leader as saying.

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The Abu Sayyaf Muslim militant group in the Philippines has a long line of bombers ready to die in attacks on Manila, a newspaper on Thursday quoted the outfit's leader as saying.

"Even we were surprised at how many want to be martyrs, the queue is long, we will not run out of bombers," Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani was quoted as saying in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's largest newspaper.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said on Tuesday her security forces had uncovered an Abu Sayyaf cell in Manila, arresting four men and seizing nearly 40 kg (80 lb) of explosives intended to be used in "Madrid-level" attacks. Police told Reuters on Wednesday that two more cell members had been caught.

Inquirer reporter Arlyn dela Cruz told Reuters that Janjalani, believed by the military to be in hiding in southern Mindanao island, had contacted her after the suspected militants were arrested.

She said he admitted that one of those arrested was his cousin, said by the government to have beheaded a U.S citizen Guillermo Sobero after he was kidnapped with others from a beach resort in 2001.

The Abu Sayyaf group was linked with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in the 1990s, but many analysts believe the ties no longer exist.

The paper also quoted Abu Sayyaf militant Abu Soliman, whom it described as one of its "intellectuals," as saying the group was responsible for planting a bomb in a ferry near Manila in February before it sank, killing more than 100 people.

The disaster is still being investigated and it has not yet been established whether a bomb caused the explosion that set the ship on fire and sank it.

Abu Sayyaf, which has no history of suicide bomb attacks, has said a man called Arnulfo Alvarado, who authorities confirmed was a passenger on the Super Ferry 14, had planted a bomb on the ferry.

The government has played down the group's claims it was behind the ferry sinking, but said one of the militants it arrested had claimed responsibility.

"We have many Arnulfo Alvarados," the paper quoted Soliman as saying.

After gaining notoriety in the early 1990s for a series of bomb attacks in the south, the Abu Sayyaf turned to kidnapping for ransom and was denounced as "unIslamic" by other Muslim militant groups.

The government says its numbers have fallen to about 300 from 1,000 four years ago as a result of infighting between different factions and a U.S.-backed military campaign to crush it after the September 11 attacks.

Source: agencies

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