Politicians back ‘militants’: army
Bank hit again
MANILA, June 8, (Agencies): One local politician has been arrested and others are wanted for supporting Islamist militants who have taken over parts of a southern Philippine city, authorities said Thursday.
Nearly 200 people have been reported killed since militants flying black flags of the Islamic State group went on a rampage in Marawi, the main Muslim city in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, on May 23.
While much of the focus has been on the hundreds of gunmen reportedly involved, authorities said Thursday that they had been receiving support from local politicians and residents.
“It’s a combination of names of politicians, private citizens and members of Maute, the leaders,” military chief of staff General Eduardo Ano said on ABS-CBN television as he discussed a list of about 200 people wanted for helping the gunmen.
Maute is one of the main militant groups, named after brothers with that surname who are from the region and are believed by the military to be among those still holed up in pockets of the city protected by human shields.
In what the military said was a significant development, ex-Marawi mayor Fahad Salic was arrested on charges of rebellion on Wednesday in another part of the southern Philippines.
“Even before the Marawi crisis, there were reports that he was a staunch supporter, he’s providing logistics and finances during the formative years of this Maute-ISIS group,” regional military spokesman Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay told reporters.
The military also hailed the capture on Tuesday of the father of the Maute brothers in the southern city of Davao, President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown about 190 kilometres (120 miles) from Marawi.
Duterte
Arrests linked to city siege:
Indonesian and Philippine authorities have arrested several people suspected of links to Islamic militants who overran a city in the southern Philippines and two others who allegedly helped inspire a double suicide bombing in Jakarta, officials said Thursday.
Indonesian national police spokesman Martinus Sitompul said a man arrested Tuesday in the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java is suspected of helping Indonesians travel to Mindanao, where they joined Islamic State group-affiliated militants who still occupy parts of Marawi more than two weeks after their initial attack.
Police only gave the man’s initials and said four of those he helped are among seven Indonesians currently sought by Philippine authorities.
Glitch strikes bank again:
A major Philippine bank shut down online access and its cash machines for a second day Thursday because of a glitch that drained some accounts but added money into others, creating at least one instant “billionaire”.
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), the country’s third biggest bank by assets and with eight million customers, was forced to deactivate electronic transactions just hours after saying the problem had been fixed and online services restored.
“I had to borrow from a friend just to eat,” university student John Daniel Villanueva, 21, told AFP after heading to cash machine Thursday morning and finding it offline.
Death for nine Filipinos:
Nine Filipinos who were part of an armed group that invaded and occupied part of Malaysian Borneo in 2013, in an episode that left scores dead, have been sentenced to hang.
The bloody incursion by some 200 Islamic militants from the southern Philippines was inspired by a selfproclaimed Filipino sultanate’s claims of historical dominion over the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island.
The assault, Malaysia’s most serious security crisis in years, led to a siege between the militants and the country’s armed forces who were sent to root them out.
German fugitive arrested:
Philippine officials say they have arrested a German man wanted in his country for attempted murder of a compatriot more than a decade ago.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said Thursday that 52-yearold Lothar Gunter Bebenroth was apprehended in central Bohol province on the German Embassy’s request. He says the fugitive has an arrest warrant issued by the Potsdam district court for repeatedly evading hearings in his court case.