by Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Philippine security forces have arrested a member of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group and seized explosives during a raid in a predominantly Christian city in the country’s Muslim south, according to the military Sunday.
Navy Commander Roy Vincent Trinidad, Naval Forces Western Mindanao chief of staff, told Anadolu Agency in a text message that Abu Sayyaf member Salim Naim Arula was captured in the operation at his home in the coastal village of Talabaan Saturday.
He said that the recovered explosives had a liquefied petroleum gas tank, ammonium nitrate, nails and other shrapnel, M14 ammunition, improvised blasting caps, electric wire and an improvised bomb.
Police intelligence forces and members of the Joint Task Group Zamboanga had conducted the raid to arrest Abs Indanan alias Alkobar, an Abu Sayyaf member based in Al Barka town, Basilan province.
Indanan had not been at the house and authorities instead arrested Arula, according to Trinidad.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a self-determined fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines.
It is notorious for beheading victims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.
The US State Department has listed the Abu Sayyaf – alongside the Jemaah Islamiyah and Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army -- as among the Foreign Terrorist Organizations operating in the Philippines.
According to the report, the Abu Sayyaf Group is the "most violent of the groups operating in the Philippines "as it claims to promote an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.”
