ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 21, 2012) – Philippine security forces arrested a notorious Abu Sayyaf militant implicated in the 2007 beheadings of government soldiers and deadly attacks in the southern Muslim province of Basilan, officials said Tuesday.
Officials said police commandos, backed by army troops, swooped down before dawn on the hideout of Abdulpattah Ismael, alias Patah Hamjak, at a riverside village in Isabela City and arrested him.
“He is facing numerous murder charges and is long wanted by authorities for various atrocities and also involved in the 2007 beheading of marines in Al-Barka town. Ismael participated as one of the planner in the incursion of 2009 Basilan jail break to rescue Dan Asnawi,” said Senior Superintendent Alexis Lineses, the provincial police chief.
Asnawi is a senior Moro Islamic Liberation Front leader in Basilan province and was also behind the killings of many soldiers during a firefight late last year in Al-Barka.
Lineses said the captured militant was also involved in failed kidnapping in Zamboanga City,
“Ismael is also involved in the foiled kidnapping (of a trader) in Zamboanga City and was responsible for the (illegal) procurement of digital PNP-SAF uniform that Abu Sayyaf terrorists used in their attack in Isabela City last year,” he told the Mindanao Examiner.
PNP-SAF refers to the elite Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police.
He said Ismael is currently being investigated by the police in Basilan, just several nautical miles south of Zamboanga City.
The military linked the Abu Sayyaf to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. (Mindanao Examiner)
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