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.