MANILA - An Indonesian terror suspect and two Filipinos were arrested during a raid on their hide-out in the southern Philippines, military officials said Tuesday. Mohamad Baehaqi, an alleged member of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, was arrested Sunday in Davao Oriental province after more than a month of surveillance, military chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon told reporters.
Esperon said Baehaqi, 26, has been in the country since September 2003 and admitted he joined a group of key Jemaah Islamiyah operatives hiding and training militants in the Philippines. The group includes Dulmatin, also known as Ammar Usman. The arrests were announced as authorities reported finding remains in a southern jungle that could be those of Dulmatin, and DNA testing was under way.
Baehaqi allegedly acted as Jemaah Islamiyah's liaison officer with Filipino contacts in central and southern Mindanao, and an arrest warrant has been issued against him for multiple murders stemming from several bombings in the south, Esperon said. He had received training at a Jemaah Islamiyah camp in central Mindanao which has since been closed, officials said.
The suspect shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is great — when presented by Esperon to the media in Manila. Security forces often parade suspects in front of journalists. Esperon said Baehaqi was assembling a bomb when arrested and admitted during interrogation that he was involved in bombings in two cities and one township on Oct. 10, 2006, that killed more than a dozen people.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_re_as/philippines_terror_suspect
‘Candidates hire Taliban look-alikes as security guards’ (Pakistan)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
BANNU: Many candidates in North Waziristan “hired” services of “security guards” who “looked like Taliban” on the polling day, eyewitnesses and officials said.
“They had long beard and hair and dressed like the Taliban. But they were not really Taliban men who generally fight the Pakistani security forces in Tribal Areas or the US forces in Afghanistan,” the eyewitnesses said, wishing not to be named. However, it was unclear who the highly armed men were, if not the Taliban.
A senior official in the agency said he saw armed men with a Taliban outlook roaming around. “These people were carrying heavy weapons like rocket-propelled grenades to protect candidates,” he said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008/02/19/story_19-2-2008_pg7_33
Dallas police website hacked, defaced
The Dallas Police Department Web site was shut down Monday night after a hacker took over the site with anti-American rants.
Whoever hacked into the site also posted a doctored photograph showing American troops watching over four people lined up against a wall.
Each of the four prisoners had lines leading away from their faces to individual head shots of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. John McCain, according to Dallas-Fort Worth television station KTVT.