The Philippine government commended troops and civilian informants yesterday for helping in the capture of a senior Muslim guerrilla commander, and vowed to crush any remaining Abu Sayyaf rebels.
Galib Andang, also known as Commander Robot, the leader of a faction of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf extremist group, was wounded in both legs during a gunfight with soldiers on Sunday in Indanan town on southern Jolo island, said Brigadier-General Gabriel Habacon, head of the military's task force charged with hunting the guerrillas.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Civilian informants tipped off soldiers on the whereabouts of Andang, who is suspected in a series of ransom kidnappings, including the abduction of Western tourists from a Malaysian resort three years ago, Habacon said.
Other Abu Sayyaf guerrillas with Andang escaped during the gunfight, he added.
Andang's wounds were believed to be serious, but Habacon said he wasn't sure if his legs would need to be amputated. TV footage showed the wounded suspect being carried away on a stretcher by soldiers. He was conscious and at times smiled.
Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Lucero said Andang will be brought to the hospital inside the main army camp in suburban Quezon City, where Armed Forces chief General Narciso Abaya was scheduled to present him to the media later yesterday.
"The capture of Commander Robot is another heavy blow to the Abu Sayyaf, which has been heavily decimated by military operations," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement. She said the group was "weary and on the run."
"The [military] is determined to finish the job against the Abu Sayyaf even as we pursue a second front against the clandestine cells of [Jemaah Islamiyah]," Arroyo said, adding the government will keep up the pressure "until all terrorists are accounted for."
The government has warned that the Abu Sayyaf group, notorious for kidnappings and beheading hostages, was cooperating with the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah, which according to officials has about two dozens operatives in the southern Philippines.
Andang is suspected of involvement in the April 2000 kidnapping of 21 people, about half of them Western tourists, from the Malaysian resort of Sipadan. The hostages were released after months in captivity, reportedly in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom paid by Libya.
A year later, the rebels kidnapped three Americans and 17 Filipinos.
One of the Americans was beheaded and another died during a military operation that led to the rescue of the third.
The kidnapping spree prompted the US to send more than 1,000 soldiers for a counterterrorism exercise that helped Filipino troops dislodge the group from Basilan island.
The Philippine military estimates there are about 250-500 guerrillas on Jolo, down from about 800 in 2001.
National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force chief Angelo Reyes said the government was open to have Andang stand trial in any country that may seek his extradition, but that he would first be tried in the Philippines, where he faces charges punishable by death.
Faced with a surge in ransom kidnappings, Arroyo last week lifted a moratorium on executions of people convicted of serious crimes.
She clarified over the weekend the executions will apply only to convicted kidnappers and drug lords.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS