RP captures rebel leader

RP captures rebel leader

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP): One of the top leaders of the
Abu Sayyaf extremist guerrilla group in the Philippines has been
captured, while five other members of the group were slain in a
separate clash, police said yesterday.

Abu Sayyaf commander Gulam Abdulkadir Sallani, the fourth most
wanted man in the Philippines, was grabbed by military
intelligence men at a helicopter landing pad of the southern
Philippines military headquarters on the outskirts of this
southern city, Superintendent Ernanito Baul said.

The suspect was armed with a pistol but it was not known how
he was able to infiltrate the military camp, Baul told reporters.

Lower courts have standing arrest warrants on Sallani for 25
murders, including the massacre of 21 marines during an Abu
Sayyaf ambush on the nearby island of Basilan in 1992, Baul said.

The Abu Sayyaf has been waging an anti-Christian campaign in
the southern third of the Philippines archipelago aimed at
setting up a separate Islamic state in the Mindanao region.