Arrest of Rizal Day bombers expected

With the arrest of Saifullah "Muklis" Yunos over the weekend, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said it is expecting the capture of those behind the bloody Rizal Day bombings in Metro Manila three years ago.

"With his arrest, we have a good chance of arresting the others involved in the (Dec. 30, 2000) blasts," said NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco. "Hopefully, after the investigation of Yunos, we’ll find others involved in the LRT (Light Railway Transit) bombing."

Intelligence sources also told The STAR that they are searching for at least 40 explosives planted in various areas in Mindanao allegedly rigged by Yunos.

"We have reports that he rigged and armed at least 40 bombs in Mindanao and we are now searching for those high explosives," a senior intelligence official said.

He said the arrest of Yunos and his Egyptian cohort, Dia Algabre, frustrated an attempt by local terrorists to carry out more attacks in the country.

As this developed, joint police and military operatives seized dozens of remote-controlled devices used as bomb detonators from several houses in Barangay Madaum in Tagum City yesterday.

Foreign intelligence reports have claimed Yunos and Algabre have been in close contact with Abu Saad, alleged chief finance officer of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network cell in Southeast Asia.

Philippine National Police (PNP) intelligence director Chief Superintendent Jesus Versosa said they were able to trace the connection between Yunos and Algabre to as far back as the Afghan war in the 1980s.

The two, along with Indonesian Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi, were former classmates at the Shariah school in Lahore, Pakistan and later joined mujahedin fighters resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Al-Ghozi had confessed he personally handed the money to Yunos at an undisclosed place in Quiapo, Manila to finance the Rizal Day bombings.

Establishing close friendship, Yunos, Algabre and Al-Ghozi trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001 attack in the United States.

"It was during that time that they were able to establish ties with each other," Versosa said.

Algabre, who is now detained facing charges, has already acknowledged that Yunos was a brilliant demolition expert and bomb maker.

Yunos was among those handpicked by Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Hashim Salamat to head the MILF’s special operations group.

Yunos was tagged as the principal suspect in the Dec. 30 simultaneous bombings in Metro Manila that left 22 people dead and more than a hundred others wounded.

MILF leaders have denied knowing Yunos but its fighters have been asserting they knew him and Algabre.

Sources described Algabre as a "frequent visitor" of members of the MILF’s central committee.

Highly placed sources in Central Mindanao, among them neighbors of MILF vice chairman for political affairs Ghadzali Jaafar in Sultan Kudarat town, Maguindanao, confirmed Algabre was often seen mingling with key rebel leaders, including Al-Haj Murad, the group’s vice chairman for military affairs, between 1992 and early 2000.

Jaafar repeatedly denied the MILF’s alleged links with Yunos and Algabre.

Jaafar accused the military of projecting supposed connections between the rebel group and the two suspects.

Field commanders of the MILF, according to local officials in Central Mindanao and sources from the Army and police intelligence outfits in the region, have secretly been corroborating the reports that Algabre, while residing in Cotabato City, was often seen visiting houses of rebel leaders in Maguindanao.

Sources in Maguindanao’s Matanog town, the known front door of Camp Abubakar, the former main enclave of the MILF, said Algabre had visited the camp over a dozen times before it fell to government forces in mid-2000.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the MILF has no links with either Yunos or Algabre, who identified himself as an Egyptian missionary.

"Yunos is not an MILF member nor a leader of the so-called special operations group," he said.

Feedback gathered from religious and political leaders in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur indicated otherwise.

They insisted Yunos is an MILF member and had, with the help of suspected foreign benefactors, trained dozens of young recruits on the handling and fabrication of improvised explosives in secluded areas in central Mindanao.

Police arrested Yunos and Algabre at an airport in Cagayan de Oro City while they were about to board a chartered plane bound for Manila.

Passing himself as Alex Soriano, a victim of vehicular accident in need of immediate medical care, Yunos tried to slip through the security detail at Lumbia airport.

Algabre was later identified as the one who placed the plaster cast on Yunos’ face and body to hide his identity.

The plan did not work after officials detected the spurious medical referral of Yunos, stating that the latter should be supposedly treated for his injuries at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City. - With Jaime Laude, Christina Mendez