Authorities in The Philippines arrested a Muslim extremist yesterday under suspicion of involvement with the kidnapping of 21 people from a Malaysian resort in 2000.
Colonel Andrelino Colina, head of a special Filipino anti-terror task force, said Nabil Talahi Idjiran, a member of an Abu Sayyaf group who took part in a raid on Malaysia’s Sipadan island, was arrested in southern port city of Zamboanga.
“He was one of the members of the group that kidnapped them (the 21 hostages),” Colina told AFP.
Idjiran also took turns guarding the hostages who were taken across the sea border to the remote Philippine island of Jolo, he added.
The 2000 kidnapping of 21 mostly Western tourists was one of the more daring raids by the Abu Sayyaf movement, an extremist Islamist group founded in the 1990s with initial capital from Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The hostages languished for months in captivity in the jungles of Jolo, some 955 kilometres south of Manila, until they were ransomed for millions of dollars.
Colina said Idjiran is also implicated in another attempt to raid a luxury resort in the southern Philippines in May 2001. That attempt was thwarted by the resort’s security staff.
Earlier this month, a Taiwanese holiday-maker and a Filipino staff member were abducted during a raid on an island resort near Semporna. Abu Sayyaf operatives are suspected to have been responsible for that kidnapping as well.
Colina said it is possible that the two latest hostages might also be hidden in the Jolo jungles.
However he said it was unlikely Idjiran was involved in the latest abductions as military intelligence operatives had monitored him around Zamboanga City since last year.
