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November 15, 2002, The Philippine Star, Abu bomb expert captured,
A terror plot to bomb Metro Manila was foiled as government intelligence agents captured a foreign-trained leader of the Abu Sayyaf group's urban special operations group in Pasay City last Tuesday.
Abdulmukim Edris, 30, who uses the aliases Mukim Ebris, Hamil Hamja Ajilul, Alex and Ryan, had a P1-million bounty on his head. The arrest of Edris helped foil planned attacks on government installations, foreign embassies and shopping malls in Metro Manila, President Arroyo said after presenting the suspect to the media at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.
Investigators said Edris also admitted having masterminded a spate of bomb attacks in Zamboanga City last Oct. 17 that left at least 23 people dead and over a hundred wounded.
Edris was arrested by agents of the Philippine Air Force (PAF)'s 300th Air Intelligence and Security Group while about to board a Taguig-bound jeepney at the vicinity of Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.
Police and military officials led by Armed Forces chief Gen. Benjamin Defensor and PAF commander Lt. Gen. Nestor Santillan presented Edris to President Arroyo during a press briefing yesterday at the Kalayaan Lounge of Villamor Air Base shortly before she flew to Batangas City for a ceremonial switch-on of the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan natural gas combined cycle power plant.
Officials said Edris has admitted that about 20 members of his unit are in Metro Manila for their bombing missions, targeting embassies, vital facilities, shopping malls and other public places.
They said the hit list included the Philippine Stock Exchange, the Ortigas-EDSA flyover, SM malls, Robinsons' Place in Manila and the Sunshine Mall in Taguig.
Police and military agents have launched a massive manhunt for the other members of Edris' group.
The agents also captured a sketch of a truck bomb loaded with drums of ammonium nitrate that Edris' group had planned to use in their terror attacks.
Edris has also confessed to investigators that he and two other Abu Sayyaf members trained for one month in Basilan in the preparation of car bombs and manufacture of improvised time bombs using cellular phones and alarm clocks.
He said their instructors were two Yemeni bomb experts believed to be members of the al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist cell in Southeast Asia.
Authorities said Edris has 11 warrants of arrest issued by the regional trial court in Isabela, Basilan for a string of pending criminal cases, including murder and kidnapping for ransom.
Edris was tagged as the mastermind in the bombing of the Shoppers' Plaza, Shop-o-rama and Shoppers' Center in Zamboanga City last Oct. 17 that left at least seven people dead and 152 others wounded.
He was also implicated in the bomb attacks on a nightclub in Malagutay, Zamboanga City last Oct. 2 where four people, one of them an American soldier, died and 25 others wounded; the blast in a church in Fort Pilar shrine that killed a Marine trooper and wounded 18 other people, as well as the explosion in a public health center in the city that left six people dead and about 50 others wounded.
Edris was also identified by some victims of the Dos Palmas kidnapping as one of the Abu Sayyaf gunmen who swooped down on the posh resort in Palawan in May last year.
One of the hostages, Joel Guillo, was at the press conference at Kalayaan Lounge and pointed to Edris as one of their tormentors.
The Abu Sayyaf gunmen rounded up 20 employees and guests of the resort, including Americans, and took them by boat to Basilan.
Sources in Zamboanga City, quoting former Dos Palmas captives, said the two Yemenis arrived in Mindanao in early September last year, and left Basilan through Lantawan town on Oct. 5, 2001 accompanied by Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafi Janjalani.
They said the Yemenis were even jubilant when the al-Qaeda staged the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
Defensor said the arrest of Edris came after six months of rigid intelligence work dubbed "Operation Gideon Alpha," launched through the collaboration of the AFP deputy chief for intelligence, the Philippine National Police Intelligence Group (PNP-IG) and Task Force Sanlahi, the Military Intelligence Group 15 and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.
"This proves how through cooperation and focused effort, we can hunt down a terrorist and render him powerless before he even gets the chance to deliver his deadly Christmas package," Defensor said.
"But this also shows the face of this new menace that is quietly creeping into our cities; that is extremely difficult to predict," he added.
PNP-IG director Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal theorized that the plot to stage bomb attacks in Metro Manila was hatched during a meeting of al-Qaeda leaders in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July last year.
"The Abu Sayyaf sent an emissary to meet with al-Qaeda operatives in Kuala Lumpur to seek financial support and assistance to mount terrorist attacks in the country (Philippines)," Caringal said.
He added that the al-Qaeda leaders vowed to provide financial support and technical expertise to the Abu Sayyaf provided that the Islamist terror group shuns banditry and focus on conducting attacks against local and foreign "enemies of Islam" in the country.
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