Kamar Jaafar also allegedly participated in a mass kidnapping of students and teachers also in Basilan in 2000, Basilan military commander Col. Bonifacio Ramos said.
Jaafar was arrested last Thursday at a public market in Isabela, Basilan’s capital. He tried to flee when intelligence agents hunting him down spotted him in a billiard hall.
The military suspected that Jaafar was on a spy mission, Ramos said. "He has a string of arrest warrants issued by Basilan Judge Danilo Bucoy on cases ranging from kidnapping with serious illegal detention and multiple murder," Ramos said.
Jaafar’s arrest came a day after another Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, Undaing Sali, was nabbed by military agents in a village near the military’s Southern Command headquarters in Zamboanga City.
The Abu Sayyaf is a small group that styles itself as an Islamic rebel group fighting for an independent Muslim state in Mindanao but its activities are mostly kidnapping-for-ransom.
Western intelligence agencies have loosely linked the Abu Sayyaf to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network and Indonesia-based al-Qaeda regional ally Jemaah Islamiyah.