Muslim militant arrested in southern Philippines

Jun 11, 2009, 5:32 GMT

   Cotabato City, Philippines - Police arrested on Thursday a Muslim militant allegedly involved in at least two deadly bomb attacks in the Philippines, a regional police spokesman said.

   Superintendent Danilo Bacas said Ansar Bernardino Venancio, a Filipino member of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group, was arrested at dawn in Marawi City, 825 kilometres south of Manila.

   Bacas said Venancio was allegedly involved in the December 30, 2000 bombings in Manila that killed 22 people and the March 2003 bombing of the international airport in the southern city of Davao, which killed 23 people.

   Venancio, an alleged bomb expert, was believed to be conducting bomb-making training among new JI recruits in the area.

   Bacas said Venancio is undergoing interrogation in a police camp in Marawi.

   Military intelligence sources said at least 40 local and foreign JI operatives are moving around the strife-torn southern region of Mindanao.

   JI operatives usually work in cahoots with local Muslim rebel groups like the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels and rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim separatist rebel group in the Philippines.