Friday, October 7, 2005
2002 Bali bombing mastermind in Philippines
Agence France-Presse
Zamboanga (Philippines), October 7, 2005
Indonesian Islamic militant Dulmatin, who has a $10 million bounty on his head, is hiding in the Philippines, a spokesman of the main Muslim separatist group said on Friday.
Dulmatin, an Al-Qaeda trained electronics expert thought to be one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings, is in Mindanao, said Eid Kabalu from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
He said Dulmatin was with the senior leader of militant group Abu Sayyaf, Khadaffy Janjalani, as well as another alleged member of Jemaah Islamiyah, Umar Patek.
The US reward announced on Thursday for information that could help capture or kill Dulmatin is second only to the $25 million offered for Osama bin Laden and Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Kabalu said that Dulmatin, Patek and Janjalani had been together in central Mindano when the Philippines military launched an operation to try to catch them in July, adding that all three apparently got away.
"Based on our operations, Dulmatin and Patek are in Mindanao but we do not know what place because they fled from the latest operations," said Kabalu.
Since the MILF signed a ceasefire with Manila in 2001, it has been helping the government track militants from Abu Sayyaf.
The Abu Sayyaf, like the JI, is on the US State Department's blacklist of "foreign terrorist organizations" which has kidnapped westerners and launched bombings of civilian targets in the Philippines.
© HT Media Ltd. 2005.