MANILA, Philippines: Police have captured a suspected al-Qaida-linked militant accused of high-profile kidnappings of at least four Americans and dozens of Filipinos in the southern Philippines, officials said Tuesday.
Source; The Star Online
- Last week's arrest of Hajer Sailani, an alleged member of the Abu Sayyaf, in a shopping mall in southern Cotabato city was the latest success of a crackdown that has netted several militants in the country's south and foiled kidnapping and terror plots, police said.
- Sailani has been linked to the 2000 kidnapping of American Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert who traveled to an Abu Sayyaf jungle stronghold on southern Jolo Island but was held by the militants on suspicion that he was working for the CIA, police spokesman Leonardo Espina said.
- Schilling escaped eight months later. Sailani also was allegedly involved in the 2001 kidnapping of three Americans and 17 Filipino tourists at the Dos Palmas resort in southwestern Palawan province, which prompted Washington to deploy U.S. troops to the southern Mindanao region to help the Philippine military rescue them, Espina said.
- American missionary Gracia Burnham survived the yearlong jungle captivity, but husband Martin was killed in the military rescue in 2002. The third American, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the militants on Basilan Island.
- Espina said Sailani also played a role in the kidnappings of dozens of teachers, priests and students in two Basilan schools in 2000. Most of the hostages were freed or escaped, but at least two teachers were beheaded.
- The national police "will not rest until all terrorists and criminals are arrested, accounted for and neutralized," Espina said.
- Among those arrested recently was Dinno-Amor Rosalejos Pareja, alleged head of the Rajah Solaiman Movement that officials say was behind the 2004 Manila ferry bombing that killed 116 people in the country's worst terror attack.
- The Abu Sayyaf, which has more than 300 fighters, is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. It is suspected of receiving funds and training from al-Qaida.
- Although the government has claimed to have crippled the Abu Sayyaf after several U.S.-backed offensives, the group still poses a major threat. It held three Red Cross workers and several others hostage earlier this year, engaged government troops in fierce fighting and planted bombs, including Sunday's blast that wounded two soldiers outside an airport and an air force base on Jolo, about 590 miles (950 kilometers) south of the capital, Manila.
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