2 more ASG members fall in Basilan

MANILA — Government security forces have arrested two members of the extremist Abu Sayyaff Group involved in the kidnapping of foreign and local tourists during operations in Basilan province, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) disclosed yesterday.

PAOCC chairman and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa said Kudairi Abdulla and Abdulgappar Inambakal were arrested by operatives of the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation in separate operations in Basilan.

Abdulla was captured in a PAOCC-supported seaborne operation conducted by combined agents of the PNP Special Action Force, the Police Regional Office 9 and the NBI in his hideout in Lampinigan Island last March 5.

Abdulla, 33, was arrested for his involvement in the Dos Palmas kidnappings where Abu Sayyaf gunmen seized 20 hostages in May 2001.

The hostage crisis led in the deaths of at least five of the original hostages including two Americans — Gullermo Sobero, a Peruvian-born American from California who was beheaded by the terrorists, and Martin Burnham, a missionary from Kansas, USA, and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap during a commando raid on June 7, 2002. The other victims were Chinese and Filipino tourists. Last March 2, combined agents of the NBI and the PNP-SAF arrested Inambakal, an ASG member who carries a P1 million bounty, during a boat interdiction operation in Maluso, Basilan.

“The suspect is wanted for 13 counts of murder and 11 counts of frustrated murder,” NBI director Virgilio Mendez said.