BASILAN (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 5, 2014) – Philippine law enforcement and intelligence agencies have arrested Wednesday a member of the notorious Abu Sayyaf group implicated in the 2001 kidnapping of three US citizens and 17 other Filipino holiday makers in the posh Dos Palmas resort in Palawan province.
Chief Inspector Ariel Huesca, a regional police spokesman, said Kudairik Abdulla alias Abu Saad, was arrested in hide hideout on Lampinigan Island off Basilan province.
“His arrest is covered by a warrant in relation to the Dos Palmas kidnapping,” he said.
He said Abdulla is the brother of an Abu Sayyaf terrorist Bong Abdulla who was killed along with over a dozen others during a botched jail break in a police detention facility in Bicutan in Taguig City in 2005.
Huesca said Abdulla, who is married to a niece of Abu Sayyaf leader Radulan Sahiron, is being interrogated by authorities. Abdulla’s father, Nasirun, is a close associate of another notorious terror leader Khair Mundos, who is long wanted by the US.
Mundos, who has links with the al-Qaeda, was arrested in 2004 in Mindanao, but escaped from his detention center in Kidapawan City in 2007. Washington has offered $500,000 reward for his capture.
Abdulla is being linked to the kidnapping of California man Guillermo Sobero and Kansas missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and the Filipinos.
The Abu Sayyaf beheaded Sobero in Basilan a month after the kidnapping while Martin Burnham was shot and killed the next year in a US-led military rescue operation in nearby Zamboanga del Norte province.
Gracia Burnham was rescued by Filipino troops, but she was also wounded. Some of the Filipino hostages were also killed and wounded by the Abu Sayyaf during their captivity.
The Burnham couple was celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary party on May 27, 2001 at Dos Palmas when the Abu Sayyaf attacked the resort. Since her rescue, Gracia Burnham has written two books, ‘In the Presence of My Enemies’ and ‘To Fly Again’ and now works a popular church speaker. (Mindanao Examiner)
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