Terror group trains Moro rebels—AFP

From the Manila Standard Today (Jun 13): Terror group trains Moro rebels—AFP

THE military now has evidence indicating that the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah has been training members of the local Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, officials said on Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Edmund Pangilinan, commander of the 6th Infantry Division, said government troops gathered the evidence from the place in Maguindanao where they clashed with BIFF members last Thursday and captured four rebels.

The four rebels were captured as the military also collared Khair Mundos, a leader and key financier of the notorious Abu Sayyaf Group, who carries a bounty of $500,000, at his hideout in Barangay San Isidro, Paranaque City.

The group was apparently in the company of Abdul Basit Usman, a JI-trained member of the Abu Sayyaf Group, for whom the United States government has offered a bounty of $1 million.

Pangilinan said two of rebels captured last Thursday were women who appeared to be wives of Basit while the remaining two men were apparently close aides.

Pangilinan said he recovered evidence bolstered claims that Usman had been training BIFF members in bomb-making and the spate of bombing incidents in Central Mindanao over the past few months was par of JI-BIFF operations.

Usman has been charged with multiple murder and frustrated murder in connection with a bombing in General Santos City on Sept. 21, 2002 that resulted in the death of 15 people dead and more than 50 others wounded.

Soldiers of the First Mechanized Brigade and 45th Infantry Battalion raided Usman’s hideout at around 5:45 a.m. Tuesday when Usman was there. There were reports that he was wounded in the raid, but the military has not independently confirmed the report.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/06/13/terror-group-trains-moro-rebels-afp/