The military dealt the Abu Sayyaf a significant blow yesterday, capturing a major rebel leader, a man said to have a degree in criminology and amazing decision-making authority within the group.

The capture of Nadzmie Sabdulla on July 9 will be viewed by the military as a major victory.

Also known as 'Commander Global' and 'Commander Al Shariff', Sabdula, who is in his early 30s, is one of five members of the group's central committee, its decision-making body. No major decisions are reportedly made without his approval, sources said.

Sabdulla holds a degree in criminology from the Zamboanga AE Colleges in Zamboanga City, a major port city in the southern Philippines, and is the only one among the Abu Sayyaf members who has finished college.

He also belonged to the Beta Sigma Fraternity in Mindanao, the main chapter of which is based in suburban Quezon City's elite University of the Philippines. Viewed as a father figure, he commands respect among the leaders of the group and is often referred to as 'The Intellectual', or the 'Authority on Islam and the Holy Quran'.

Sabdulla often said the movement should be referred to as Al Harakatul Al Islamiya (Islamic movement), not as the Abu Sayyaf, which means the bearer of the sword, a radio signal of the group's leader Abudrajak Janjalani, who was killed in April 1999.

Sabdulla once revealed his group was formed after the integration of the mainstream Moro National Liberation Front into the government, after the forging of the government-MNLF pro-autonomy peace agreement in 1996. Most of his men were former MNLF regulars who were disappointed with the MNLF's leadership for capitulating at the time of the agreement, Sabdulla once said.

"We despise the government and will push for social, political and economic reform in the treatment of the Bangsamoro people," Sabdulla said, adding they wanted reforms for the Bangsamoro people who are the "rightful leaders of Mindanao and Palawan (in southern Philippines".

Taking up arms against the Philippines government, he added, is one way of eliciting change; another is through kidnapping, to "send a strong signal to the government and the world to draw attention to the plight of the Bangsamoro".

Considered as the ideologue in the group, he called for the establishment of an independent Islamic State based on the Sharia, adding it is the only thing that will work for the Bangsamoro.

Sabdulla is believed to have composed all the press releases and the letters to the government negotiators for the release of the 40 mostly foreign hostages which his group took at different times in Malaysia's Sipadan resort in May 2000, and in Jolo from July to August last year.

The soft-spoken "very polite" individual impressed foreign journalists last year as a man who lived a simple life and spent his days praying, meditating and reading.