Abu Sayyaf responsible for deadly Philippine ferry fire

A bomb planted by the Abu Sayyaf group caused a ferry fire in February that killed over 100 people in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, an investigation concluded yesterday.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo had initially played down the possibility that the fire was a terrorist attack despite a claim of res-ponsibility from the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, but yesterday she said that six members of the group had been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

Arroyo said the men in custody were also responsible for a mass abduction in 2001 from the Dos Palmas resort on the Philippine island of Palawan, which left several hostages dead.

The suspects made and planted the bomb, and one of them beheaded Guillermo Sobero of Corona, California, early in the yearlong hostage crisis, Arroyo said. Missionary Martin Burnham of Wichita, Kansas, also died during a rescue mission that freed his wife, Gracia.

"I am now instructing the police and the military to intensify the manhunt for the two masterminds -- Khaddafy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman -- and their two other accomplices," Arroyo told a news conference.

Sulaiman was the target of an unsuccessful US-backed operation two weeks ago aimed at capturing or killing him. He and Janjalani, the group's main leader, already had US$5 million bounties on their heads.

The al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, which is on Washington's list of international terror groups, claimed responsibility immediately after the Feb. 27 fire aboard the Superferry 14, saying it planted a bomb inside a TV set that one of its members carried aboard.

A blast and fire struck the ferry, carrying about 900 people, an hour after it left Manila for the central and southern Philippines. The official report said the bodies of 63 people were recovered and that 53 others are missing and believed dead.

The overall presumed death toll of 116 would make it Southeast Asia's second-worst terror attack after the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian resort island.

Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza said investigators believe the Superferry 14 was targeted because owners WG&A had not complied with an Abu Sayyaf letter last year demanding US$1 million in protection money.

A preliminary investigation had indicated two possible causes -- a bomb or a gas explosion.

Mendoza said the investigation dragged because it took five months to right the ferry, which ended up lying on its side in shallow water, and investigators then encountered a tangle of twisted metal that supported the conclusion that a bomb caused the disaster.

The ship's captain testified that he smelled gunpowder as smoke engulfed the vessel after the blast. Other witnesses said it originated from a part of the ship where the Abu Sayyaf claimed to have planted a bomb.

In March, Arroyo announced the arrests of six Abu Sayyaf members, including one who allegedly confessed to planting the bomb, and the discovery of a cache of TNT that police said was to be used to bomb malls, trains, an oil depot, foreign embassies and other targets in Manila.

Even after the confession, the government said it still wasn't certain that the Abu Sayyaf claims were true.

Security officials have said Redendo Cain Dellosa confessed after his arrest that he stashed about 3.6kg of TNT in a TV set that he carried onto the ferry. Dellosa later claimed he was tortured into signing a confession.

Police said in their complaint that Muslim convert Walter Villanueva told them that Dellosa stayed in his suburban Manila house, where he packed and attached wires to the TV set. Dellosa allegedly said the TV contained TNT and that he was ordered by Janjalani and Sulaiman to place the bomb aboard the ferry.

Dellosa allegedly later told Villanueva that the bomb had exploded aboard the ferry and that more terror attacks were in the offing.