Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 19, 2002

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine police have captured a leader of the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf who allegedly was involved in the kidnappings of Western tourists two years ago, officials said Saturday.

Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale, 21, also allegedly colluded with Indonesians linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian Muslim group suspected of ties to Al Qaeda, in a wave of bombings in Manila on Dec. 30, 2000.

The announcement came as the government claimed it killed five Muslim guerillas in two clashes in the southern Philippines.

Soldiers battled about 50 rebels, killing three and recovering two M-16 rifles and two M-79 grenade launchers, in the first clash Saturday morning in the foothills of Mount Palaw, said Col. Ernesto Boac, a commander with the 401st Infantry Brigade.

A second firefight, in which two guerrillas were killed and two M-16 rifles recovered, followed 35 minutes later about two miles away in the forested hills, Boac said.

The government said it suffered no casualties in either clash.

Gumbahale, also known as Abu Pula and Dr. Abu, was arrested Thursday while playing a video game at an Internet cafe in the Manila suburb of Taguig, said police Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal.

Gumbahale allegedly was involved in the kidnapping of 10 tourists -- two Finns, three Germans, three French and two South Africans -- along with 11 other people from the Sipadan dive resort in April 2000. All except one Filipino have been freed, reportedly after Libya paid huge ransoms.

Gumbahale, a firearms specialist, is one of the top eight leaders of Abu Sayyaf. A reward equal to about $94,000 had been offered for his capture.

The kidnapping of tourists propelled Abu Sayyaf to international notoriety. U.S. troops trained Filipino soldiers for six months earlier this year to help them fight the rebels in the southern Philippines.

Gumbahale and other Abu Sayyaf leaders have been charged with kidnapping.

Caringal said Gumbahale has admitted involvement in the almost simultaneous December 2000 bombings that killed 22 people. The attacks were linked to Jemaah Islamiyah.

The United States suspects Jemaah Islamiyah of involvement in last weekend's bombings that killed at least 183 people on the Indonesian island of Bali. The group's spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, 64, was arrested Saturday in Indonesia for his alleged involvement in a series of church bombings there in December 2000.

No one has been charged for the bombings at several public facilities in Manila that month. But Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian, told police he helped plan them. He pleaded guilty to explosives possession charges in April and was sentenced to between 10 and 12 years in prison.

He was arrested in January and led police to a buried stash of more than a ton of TNT that allegedly was to be used in attacks on Western targets in Singapore.

Caringal said Gumbahale admitted attending a meeting of 15 people -- including Al-Ghozi's alleged accomplice, Muklis Yunos -- in Manila's Quiapo district to plan the Manila bombings. They were divided into two groups, with Gumbahale's faction planting bombs on a bus and in the Makati financial district, Caringal said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66125,00.html