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A MEMBER
of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) who was allegedly involved
in the 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping was captured by
Marines in Tawi-Tawi last week.
Teteng
Mandangan, alias Abu Kudama, was captured in combat
operations in the capital town of
Bongao on Wednesday, the Marine Corps spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonas
Lumawag, said.
Lumawag
said Kudama participated in the kidnapping of 20 people,
including American couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, six
years ago at the Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan.
Kudama
was with a group of bandits then headed by ASG chieftain
Khadaffy Janjalani when they allegedly kidnapped the
victims, including American Guillermo Sobero, whom they
beheaded, and Filipino businessman Reghis Romero II and
a female companion.
The
bandits later took their victims to the town of Lamitan
in Basilan where the gunmen took shelter at a hospital,
surrounded by troops.
Romero
and his companion allegedly were able to escape at the
height of the siege that resulted in the death of some
40 Army soldiers, five of them officers.
“His
involvement in the Lamitan siege as one of the abductors
was also confirmed by two witnesses,” Lumawag said.
Gracia
Burnham was rescued by the military in Sibuco, Zamboanga
del Norte, in 2002, or a year after the kidnapping, but
her husband was killed during the rescue operation.
In
September 2006, government forces killed Janjalani in a
gunbattle in the province of Sulu.
Lumawag
said Kudama is still undergoing interrogation at the
headquarters of the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom)
in Zamboanga City.
Meanwhile, a ranking military official declared that the
military’s campaign against lawless groups like the al-Qaeda-linked
Abu Sayyaf and the New People’s Army (NPA) is gaining
ground in the area of the Western Mindanao Command.
The
Wesmincom chief, Maj. Gen. Nelson Allaga, said
government forces have managed to neutralize a number of
Abu Sayyaf bandits and other lawless elements since
September.
Allaga
said that from September, his command has killed or
captured 12 Abu Sayyaf bandits, 14 NPA guerrillas, seven
members of lawless groups and three rogue Moro National
Liberation Front rebels.
Allaga
made the statement in reaction to allegations that the
military is failing in its campaign against terror in
this part of the country.
Allaga’s
command covers the Zamboanga provinces, Basilan, Sulu
and Tawi-Tawi in the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao and Lanao del Norte.
The
Wesmincom is now focusing its campaign against the
remaining leaders and members of the Abu Sayyaf in
Basilan and Sulu. (With B. Garcia Jr.) |
