By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY
Philippine security forces captured Friday a member of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group on an island off a predominantly Christian city in the country’s Muslim south.
Army spokesperson Capt. Rowena Muyuela told The Anadolu Agency the Abu Sayyaf’s Wahid Pingli -- alias Gaffur – was arrested on Sacol off the east coast of Zamboanga City at around 4.30 (22.30 Thursday Turkish time).
"Said arrest was made possible through the joint law enforcement operations of the AFP [army] and PNP [national police] to expedite arrest of lawless elements in the area," she said.
An M16 assault rifle, a magazine and 17 rounds of cartridge were recovered from the suspect’s possession.
Pingli, an Abu Sayyaf member based in Zamboanga City, was wanted on charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention.
Authorities believe he was behind the kidnapping of a businessman, who was abducted in May 2008 and released June 9 that year, and a 60-year-old, abducted June 2010 and released August the same year.
In 2012, police records showed Pingli was ranked fourth on Zamboanga City’s 10 most wanted list.
In Manila, meanwhile, two Abu Sayyaf members and an Indonesian militant were convicted Thursday for their role in a bombing at a shopping center that left at least 14 people dead in the southern port city of General Santos in 2002.
The convicted included Ahmad Jekeron and Yacob Basug, and Jul Kifli, a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah -- a Southeast Asian militant group with links to al-Qaeda that has carried out bomb attacks in Indonesia and elsewhere in the region.
On April 12, 2002 a homemade bomb exploded at the FitMart Mall in General Santos after the Abu Sayyaf called a local radio station, warning explosions would occur that day.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a struggle for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.
It has been blamed for the worst militant attack in the Philippines, the sinking of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 in which 116 people were killed.
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