Alert on in Sulu amid Sayyaf terror plot

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Security was tightened yesterday in Sulu amid military intelligence reports that extremist Muslim rebels were plotting to launch attacks, an official said.

This developed as the military also placed under tight surveillance anew yesterday the town of Shariff Aguak in Maguin-danao following recent sightings of some 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas believed gearing up for renewed attacks on critical stretches of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway.

Government and MILF peace panels held a committee-level meeting yesterday to iron out peaceful solutions to the nagging security problems in areas covered by the ceasefire, the continuing skirmishes in Carmen, North Cotabato and the government's recognition of MILF camps all over Mindanao.

Soldiers and armored vehicles were deployed to Sulu, particularly in the capital town of Jolo, to prevent Abu Sayyaf rebels from sowing terror.

Brig. Gen. Orlando Buena-ventura, a Marine commander, said intelligence reports indicated the Abu Sayyaf plans to carry out terror attacks on Catholic churches and chapels in Jolo to retaliate against the ongoing military offensive.

"Marines are heavily concentrated on a Catholic cathedral in downtown Jolo and priests and nuns have been provided tight security," he said. "The risks are high and we do not want to take chances."

The military earlier had placed on red alert all security forces in Sulu after several high-powered firearms, believed smuggled by the Abu Sayyaf, were seized from an inter-island ferry.

The offensive was also meant to pursue rebels who were behind the kidnapping of businessmen Robustiano Hablo and Edwin Endozo and bank teller Patrick Viray. Hablo was freed last Feb. 6, while Endozo and Viray are still being held captive.

Last Sunday, a Marine soldier, Sgt. Domingo Bojo of the 6th Marine Battalion Landing Team, was killed and two others were wounded in a brief gunbattle with Abu Sayyaf rebels who were laying land mines on a road where soldiers frequently pass in the nearby town of Indanan.

At least 14 Abu Sayyaf rebels have been killed since the start of the year in the government offensive against the group, the most violent Muslim rebel faction fighting for a strict Islamic state in Mindanao.

The Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for bombings, killings, abductions for ransom, extortion and other terrorist activities in the South.

Meanwhile, Capt. Lino Aso, spokesman of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, said the MILF group planning to stage clandestine attacks in Shariff Aguak is led by Ustadz Amiril Ombra, commander of the MILF's 206th Brigade.

"But there is nothing to worry about because the 6th ID will really do its best to prevent these rebels from further displacing our people and disrupting the flow of traffic in the highway," Aso said.

Last Saturday, about 50 Muslim rebels shelled a military detachment in Barangay Manara-pan in Carmen, North Cotabato. Soldiers retaliated to prevent the rebels from closing in.

Barangay officials in the towns of Datu Piang, Shariff Aguak and Talayan confirmed that Ombra, a foreign-trained Islamic theologian, had, indeed, been consolidating his forces in preparation for another tactical maneuver along the Cotabato-Isulan Highway.

Earlier, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said that rebel forces in Mindanao might wage a "big war" in the island, but the military said it has enough forces to quell such a plot.

"The threat is there and it's their warning. But the Southern Command is very much capable to repel the rebels whoever they are, whatever their threats are," said Maj. Salih Indanan, the command's spokesman.