Blah Platon, a suspected member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), was carrying a powerful homemade bomb on a motorcycle when he was apprehended by highway police at a checkpoint in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, Chief Superintendent German Doria said.
"This man is a known bomb expert trained by Jemaah Islamiyah," said Doria, the regional police chief. "He knows how to assemble improvised bombs."
Superintendent Willie Dangane, chief of the Regional Investigation and Intelligence Division (RIID) in Central Mindanao, said Platon had links with the MILF, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, and was trained by an Indonesian bomb-maker, Jabide Abdul, also known as Bedz.
"Target niyang pasabugan ang Tacurong City at Carmen town in North Cotabato," Dangane told radio station Bombo Radyo here.
Had the explosive been detonated, the damage would have been far greater than that caused by the Makilala blast in North Cotabato last month that killed six people and wounded 30 others, Dangane said.
The bomb, fashioned from a 105mm mortar with several blasting caps, was found in the bag of Platon, who is from Datu Paglas town in Maguindanao, he said.
Dangane said Platon, also wanted for kidnapping and who has a P175,000 bounty on his head, was nabbed by RIID operatives on the highway of San Pablo at around 4:35 a.m.
"We also have standing warrants of arrest against Platon for his involvement in several bomb attacks and kidnap-for-ransom incidents in Tacurong and nearby areas," Dangane added.
Authorities, he said, have long been hunting Platon for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Philippine National Oil Corp. (PNOC) engineers in Maguindanao and of a wealthy businessman in M’lang, North Cotabato a few years ago.
Platon has pending kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges filed against him with a regional trial court in Cotabato City.
Doria said the capture of Platon, also known as Datu Demaatol Guilal, may have averted attacks on mainly Roman Catholic cities in Mindanao.
"We believe we foiled another bomb attack," Doria said, adding investigators were trying to determine the exact targets.
Platon is said to be a member of the Special Operations Group of the 107th Base Command of the MILF headed by a certain Commander Jack.
Police said Commander Jack’s group has formed an alliance with the JI, particularly with Abdul’s group, which is believed responsible for the series of recent bombings in Central Mindanao and neighboring areas including the most recent explosions in Makilala, Tacurong and Cotabato City.
Doria said authorities were investigating Platon’s links to bomb attacks in Mindanao, including the Oct. 10 Makilala bombing.
That day in Tacurong, a bomb made from 60mm mortar rounds ripped through a market, wounding four people.
About 12 hours later, a similar bomb went off during a religious festival in nearby Makilala.
There were also blasts outside a shopping mall in Cotabato City, at a market in Pagadian City and inside a police camp on Jolo island.
Some police and army commanders have suggested the attacks could be in retaliation for offensives against Abu Sayyaf rebels and Indonesian militants on Jolo since August, forcing officials to raise the security alert in the south.
Abu Sayyaf, the smallest and most violent of four Muslim rebel groups in the Philippines, was blamed for the worst attack in the country, the 2004 bombing of a ferry near Manila that killed more than 100 people.
Last month, police filed murder charges against two top Indonesian terror suspects – Dulmatin and Umar Patek – and 18 Filipino rebels.
Dulmatin and Patek – believed to be hiding in the southern Mindanao region – have been blamed for some of Southeast Asia’s worst terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
MILF chairman Al Haj Murad was initially included in the complaint but the prosecutor later dropped him from the list because of lack of evidence. The rebels had warned the murder charges might scuttle peace talks. — Ramil Bajo, AP, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Jaime Laude, AFP