A key leader of the Philippine rebel group of Abu Sayyaf linked
to a 2001 kidnapping of foreign tourists was captured in the
jungles of Basilan Island in southern Philippines, said police
Sunday.
Angging Yunos, alias "Commander Abu Yunos" was captured on
Thursday, but his arrest was not immediately announced because
military and police were still launching operation against other
members of the Abu Sayyaf Group.
Chief Supt. Jaime Caringal, chief of the Philippine National
Police for Western Mindanao, did not give details on Yunos' capture
but said he would be presented to the media on Monday.
Yunos is one of the three most wanted Abu Sayyaf commanders
operating in the vast Zamboanga Peninsula in southern
Philippines.
The manhunt against Yunos, who masterminded the kidnapping in
2001 of 21 people, most of them foreign tourists, in Dos Palmas
resort in Palawan, southwest Philippines, was jointly launched by
police and military forces after they were informed that he was in
the hinterlands of the town of Isabela in Basilan.
Yunos is facing charges of kidnappings, multiple murder and
illegal detention.
An American missionary, Martin Burnham, was killed when
government troops tried to rescue the kidnapped from Yunos and his
followers.
The Philippine military has also been hunting down Abu Sayyaf
top leader Khaddafy Janjalani, who is hiding on the island of Sulu
with 200 fully armed Abu Sayyaf men and two members of the
Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamihya who were linked with the
2002 Bali bombing in which 202 people were killed.
(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2006)
