Zamboanga City on high alert as troops pursue Sayyaf

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - Police and military have placed this city under alert following a series of arrest of suspected Abu Sayyaf militants, who were suspected to stage a kidnapping spree  here.

Senior Superintendent Angelito Casimiro, City Police director, said the heightened alert was also due to the operations launched by the military forces against the Abu Sayyaf group in Basilan and Sulu areas.

Combined police and military intelligence operatives arrested  three Abu Sayyaf suspects on Sunday night on the beach front of Barangay Maasin while planning to abduct a son of a shipyard owner, and another businessman in the west coast of this city.

The raiding forces also recovered the ‘jungkong’ styled speedboat of the Sulu-based Abu Sayyaf kidnapping cell that was supposed to be used to transport their target victims.

However, the other companions of the suspects managed to escape on board of another jungkong speedboat toward an unknown direction.

Casimiro believes that some of the suspected Abu Sayyaf kidnapping cell members could still be hiding in this city.

He has earlier said that combined security forces also captured Sattar Abdulla, an Abu Sayyaf suspect tagged to be involved in the 2002 abduction of six members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sulu, during a raid in an island village off this city.

The security forces have so far arrested six suspected Abu Sayyaf members in a span of one week with the capture last June 16 of two other Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf members  operating the kidnapping cell in the east coast of this city.

“We suspected these Abu Sayyaf members who were spotted here are on kidnapping mission only,” Casimiro said.

However, the police official did not rule out the possibility of the militants’ diversionary attack to ease the ongoing military and police operations in Sulu where 10 militants were among those killed , and 13 other Abu Sayyaf members were wounded Thursday.

At least  seven soldiers were also killed and 24 others were wounded in the encounter in Patikul town. The operations sought to rescue about 10 kidnap victims, including six foreign nationals.

“We are on heightened alert because of the incident in Sulu,” Casimiro added.