Six Muslim terror suspects nabbed

Joint police anti-terrorist and Army intelligence agents arrested Thursday night six suspected Muslim converts turned terrorists in a raid at an Islamic school (Madrasah) reportedly being funded and operated by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network in Anda, Pangasinan.

In a succeeding operation, an undetermined number of members of the same Muslim terror group were also apprehended in a pre-dawn operation by joint police and anti-terrorist units at the terror group’s training camp in Barangay San Clemente, a mountainous village in Tarlac City.

Undergoing police interrogation at the Pangasinan police jail where they are temporarily detained are Dawud Muslim del Rosario Santos, Pio Abagne de Vera alias Ismael de Vera, Marcelo Cenar Egil, Allan "Al Hakim" Barlagdaton, Reendo Cain Dellosa alias Habil Akmad Dellosa, and Angelito Trinidad alias Aris.

The group, mostly former Christians who have converted to the Islamic faith, reportedly passed themselves off as radio correspondents affiliated with Fi Sabilillah Da’Awah and Media Foundation, which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Authorities maintained that the detained suspects are all active members of the local Muslim terror group who were reportedly plotting terrorist acts inside the Islamic school in Barangay Malag, Anda, to avenge the death of a colleague and the arrest of another in Tarlac City on Labor Day.

Joint agents from the PNP anti-terrorist task force Sanlahi under chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, Pangasinan police headed by Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Mendoza and the Army’s Intelligence Service Group (ISG) recovered a caliber .22 revolver, a caliber .45 automatic, a shotgun, night vision binoculars and sets of fatigue uniforms from the suspects.

The raiding team also recovered documents which showed that one of the leaders of the group, Ahmad Santos, received his military training from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) at Camp Bushra in Central Mindanao.

Photos of Santos found inside the Islamic school showed him together with MILF chairman Hasim Salamat and Al Haj Murad at his military training graduation on Jan. 2, 2002.

Government raiding team tagged Santos’s brother Dawad as one of the local cell leaders of al-Qaeda whose task is to recruit and train new members of the terror group in various parts of the country.

Acting on information gathered from the apprehended suspected terrorists, a composite team from Task Force Sanlahi and the Tarlac and Pangasinan police swooped down on the group’s training camp in Barangay San Clemente, a mountain village in Tarlac at the boundary of Zambales about 1 a.m. yesterday.

Several people were rounded up in the operation that also yielded two M-14 and one M-16 rifles, four grenades, five rifle grenades, detonating cords, ingredients in the manufacture of explosives and sophisticated surveillance gadgets, including night vision goggles.

As of presstime, the raiding team has yet to return to Camp Crame. "They are now trekking on their way down to the national highway," a ranking Camp Crame official told The STAR.

Last Tuesday, a certain Khalid, said to be a member of the group, was killed in a gunfight with police at a bus terminal in Tarlac City. The incident resulted in the arrest of Khalid’s colleague Omar Mayumo, while five of their companions escaped.

Mayumo, a 20-year-old Muslim student from Makati City, admitted to belonging to a terror group called "Haraka," which police believe to be one of the numerous global cells of al-Qaeda. Police said Mayumo is a native of Barangay Poblacion in Ipil, Zamboanga del Sur which the Abu Sayyaf terrorized in April 1994.

Police seized two handguns and four fragmentation grenades from the slain and the arrested terror suspects, who police authorities claimed had been dispatched on a test bombing mission in Tarlac City on Labor Day.

Authorities are now pursuing the leader of the group, only identified as Sheik Hamod, an Arab national, said to be a resident of Barangay Mal-ong in Anda, Pangasinan. Hamod is believed to maintain and oversee the operations of the raided Madrasah in that town.

Meanwhile, military intelligence agents from at least three units of the Armed Forces have joined their counterparts in the police in efforts to unmask the mysterious terrorist group Haraka, as well as its network, leaders and members.

Tarlac police chief Superintendent Tito Bayangos said criminal charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives have been filed against self-confessed Haraka (an Islamic word meaning "the movement") member Mayumo.

Asked how the Tarlac police got wind of Haraka’s plan to sow terror in Tarlac, Bayangos simply said that, unlike the military, the police force has "a civilian character that allows lawmen to directly immerse themselves with the people."

According to him, this is the first time that lawmen in Tarlac have engaged "sleepers" like Mayumo and Khalid. Sleepers are covert operatives who blend with the common people to conceal their true identities and spring into action only when ordered by shadowy superiors.

Bayangos said that rightist or leftist elements, like the communist-led New People’s Army and other military adventurists, often take "high-profile stances for propaganda purposes."

As garnered from the tactical interrogations of Mayumo, "this type of lawless elements (the sleepers) don’t really know each other. What (Mayumo) only knows about his companions are their aliases and some rudimentary information about their leaders," Bayangos said.

Filipino-Muslim OCWs as al-Qaeda ‘couriers’

The intelligence community has confirmed intelligence reports that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network is using Filipino-Muslim contract workers as "couriers" to its Mindanao-based terror groups.

"We have found out only now that some Filipino-Muslims are ‘couriers’ of messages and instructions intended for the al-Qaeda network in Mindanao from the Middle East-based associates of the prime suspect on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States," said an official of the intelligence community.

The official, who requested anonymity, said they are still confirming reports that the messages and instructions come from Mohamad Jamal Khalifa, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Khalifa, who is married to the sister of Bin Laden, is believed to have set up an Islamic foundation in Mindanao that funnels funds to local terror groups. He is also wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his ties to several people convicted in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and his involvement in the unsuccessful plot to assassinate the Pope while in Manila.

Khalifa, who used Mindanao as his base, disappeared from Mindanao a day after Sept. 11 and was believed to have returned to Saudi Arabia where he now operates the al-Qaeda cells in Mindanao through remote control using returning Filipino-Muslim contract workers.

The FBI made public last Tuesday new information linking Khalifa to a web of Islamic militants operating from the Philippines to sow terror in Southeast Asia.

The intelligence reports about the Filipino-Muslim "couriers" were confirmed after surveillance on the two groups of Filipino-Muslims who reportedly received military training in Saudi Arabia, and who upon arrival last March at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport boasted that they idolized Osama bin Laden. -With reports from Rey Arquiza, Benjie Villa