Arroyo declares the arrest of what she brands as "Abu Sayyaf terrorists

ILOILO CITY, March 30 (IslamOnline.net) - Filipino Muslims expressed alarm and fear Tuesday, March 30, over the recent spate of arrests carried out by government troops against Muslim men alleged to be members of the 'Abu Sayyaf'.

“This Gestapo-type of operation carried out by the police and the military sets alarm and fear among the Muslim community,” Amirah Ali Lidasan of the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday.

Her comment came after President Gloria Arroyo announced the arrest of four Muslim men alleged to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, a group listed as a terrorist group by the government and the United States.

Arroyo vowed to dismantle all what she termed “terrorist cells” in the Philippines as she announced the capture of four alleged terrorists and the seizure of a cache of explosives preempting what she described as a 'Madrid-type of attack' in Metro Manila.

Arroyo said that the Philippines is "quietly but persistently and consistently and ploddingly" building up the intelligence networks in going after terrorist cells in the country and that "we are now reaping the catch."

Lidasan, however, criticized Arroyo’s statement because “it gives the intelligence agents and operatives of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to abduct innocent Muslim civilians and force them to confess to the crime they have not done.

“It sets the conditions for the violation of the rights of the Muslim people,” Lidasan argued, as it also “gives leeway for military and police officials to arrest even Muslim women.”

Two women were arrested by police in the raid of Fi Sabilillah, Islamic boarding school Friday, March 26. They were arrested because the men written in the arrest warrant were not on the vicinity thus the two wives of one of the target of the raid were arrested in replacement.

Arroyo Tuesday announced that four Abu Sayyaf “terrorists” are now in custody and held without bail after they were arrested on the strength of a warrant of arrest issued by Judge Erlinda Uy of Pasig City.

She said that a cache of some 80 pounds of TNT was seized from the four terrorists, which, according to intelligence reports, was intended to be used in bombing malls and trains in Metro Manila.

Gen. Ismael Rafanan, head of the PNP Intelligence Group, identified the suspects as Alhambser Manatad Limbong, who beheaded American hostage Guillermo Sobero and took part in the killing of a U.S. serviceman during Baliktan exercise in Zamboanga City; Redondo Cain Dellosa, who trained under an Indonesian terrorist instructor; Abdurajid Lim, an ASG commando who participated in the Dos Palmas kidnapping incident; and Radsmar Sangkula, an ASG explosive trainer and participant in the abduction of 53 hostages in Sumahukom, Basilan in 2000.

Arroyo said that the government has witnesses against those arrested and the cases against them "are strong and airtight."

But Lidasan said at least one of the suspects is innocent. She said Redondo Dellosa, a Muslim revert, has been reported to them to have been abducted and they were surprised that he was among those arrested as members of the Abu Sayyaf.

“When you are abducted and tortured, you wouldn’t have any other recourse but to admit what they tell you to admit,” Lidasan said, adding that “this is the same pattern the government military and police officers have used in Basilan.”

She said it is good that the wife of another Muslim, Abdulwali Ancheta Villanueva, has reported about the abduction of her husband. “Had she failed to do so, he might have been also included among those supposed terrorists.”

On March 28, around 5:00 in the afternoon, several unidentified men in civilian clothes abducted Villanueva in the parking lot in front of the entrance of Shoemart Fairview shopping mall. Witnesses to the abduction said that there were several men who forced Villanueva to go inside a Revo sports utility vehicle.

Villanueva is now detained pending filing of criminal charges but Lidasan said, “When we visited him, he bore torture marks.”