Four bombing suspects held

The police claimed a breakthrough yesterday in investigations into a series of bomb blasts in Zamboanga, which killed eight people, and said it had taken four suspects into custody.

Police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said the four will be presented to the media today. He said that the suspects were behind the October 2 bombing that killed an American soldier and two Filipino civilians on Zamboanga City, the October 17 bombing of a shopping mall that killed six people and the October 20 bombing of a shrine that killed one soldier.

"They are still in Zamboanga. There is a positive development," said Ebdane. "Definitely, in less than 24 hours. By tomorrow (we will present them)," Ebdane told a gathering of Filipino-Chinese businessmen.

Other police officials said five people were in custody and would be taken to Manila.

Ebdane declined to identify them, but one police source said they were believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group, which has been linked to the Al Qaida network of Osama bin Laden.

The police chief added that police investigators have yet to get more clues to the bombing of a bus that killed three people and injured 20 in Balintawak, suburban Quezon City's EDSA on October 18.

At the same time, Zamboanga City police director, Mario Yanga, said the police were looking at 10 suspected bombers in Zamboanga. "Seven of them have already been identified, but we shall not release their names until they are all arrested," he said.

One of the identified bombers is a woman, he said.

Sources refuse to say whether the suspects belong to the Abu Sayyaf group, which was behind the spate of kidnappings in Basilan and Jolo for the past 10 years. The group has been linked to the Al Qaida network.

Earlier, a 13-year-old boy in Zamboanga City provided the police with a clue, saying that the suspect in the Fort Pilar bombing was a 17-year-old boy in a black T-shirt and jeans who parked his bicycle, which carried the explosives, near the front gate of the Catholic church.

"It was the bicycle that exploded," the boy added.

On Thursday, the police arrested the aide to Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya, Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale, at an Internet cafe in Maharlika village in Metro Manila's Taguig City.

During police interrogation, Gumbahale reportedly admitted participating in the bombing of the elevated train system which killed 23 and injured 60 others in Metro Manila on December 30, 2000.

He also revealed the name of one alleged terrorist, Mouklis Yunus, as the one who hatched the December 30 plot, adding that Yunus was the special operations group chief of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, who was tapped by Indonesian national, Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi, to purchase explosives for the bomb attacks.

Al Ghozi, a confessed member of the Jemaah Islamiyah, is serving a 17-year jail term in the country for possession of one ton of explosives which was found in General Santos in January this year.

Police authorities did not explain Gumbahale's presence in Manila. But sources said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has started its own investigation of the bus bombing in Metro Manila.

A U.S. official came to Manila recently to establish Gumbahale's links to foreign terrorist groups, said chief superintendent Jaime Caringal, police director for the intelligence group.

Police authorities have not yet established Gumbahale's links to the Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group based in south-east Asia which is believed to have links with Al Qaida.

Intelligence reports said the Jemaah Islamiyah is plotting to establish a pan-Islamic state in south-east Asia's Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines.