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BBC Monitoring International Reports Guzman and TJ Burgonio, carried by Philippine newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer web site on 2 March Zamboanga City
"We showed this by kidnapping more than 70 people in Tumahubong and Sinangkapan," Sali said in a phone interview. The bandit leader was referring to the mass abduction that took place on March 20, 2000 in Sumisip and Tuburan towns in which 78 schoolteachers and students, including the late Claretian missionary Fr Rhoel Gallardo, were taken hostage. Sali said the Abu Sayyaf received about 1m pesos each year from its allies and supporters in Iraq. "So we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people in Mindanao," he said. Sali said the group's firearms were being provided by some contacts in the Middle East. He said the firearms were transported to Mindanao by way of Cambodia and Vietnam. "Then somebody receives them in Malaysia and sends them to the Philippines," Sali said.
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Sali, who was a key leader in the Abu Sayyaf hostage-taking in Sipadan, Malaysia and the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan, said corrupt soldiers and military officials also supplied the group with firearms. "But I won't identify them because they might not sell to us again," he said. During the interview, Sali said he had relocated to Central Mindanao, but not to hide. He said he was supervising the Abu Sayyaf's renewed attacks on the government. Sali has claimed that he and some 90 Abu Sayyaf terrorists were in Central Mindanao to carry out economic sabotage operations through bombings. "We won't stage kidnappings or beheadings in the meantime. We will sabotage the economy by destroying all electric posts, towers and lines," he said. But the military has dismissed his claims, saying it was the Moro Islamic Liberation Front MILF that staged the attacks. "It's just a diversionary tactic by the MILF to escape blame," Lt-Col Michael Manquiquis, the Armed Forces spokesperson. The military maintains that the MILF carried out the series of bombings that toppled power transmission towers in Maguindanao this week in retaliation against the capture of its camp in North Cotabato two weeks ago. Maj Julieto Ando, spokesperson of the Army's 6th Infantry Division based in Maguindanao, said the military has deployed a number of intelligence operatives to track down Sali's hideout in Central Mindanao even as he disputed claims that Sali's arrival in the region was behind the recent series of explosions. He said the bombing of the Cotabato City airport and the sabotaging of power lines of the National Power Corp. were meant to divert the military's attention from its offensive against the MILF in Pikit, North Cotabato. "What reports we received from our men in the field say all these attacks, including (the bombing of) the transmission towers of the National Power Corp., were really perpetrated by the MILF," Ando said. Manquiquis said the evidence pointed to the MILF as the culprit, pointing out that the mortar shells used in the attacks were part of the secessionist group's artillery. "We suspect that this was the work of the MILF-SOG (special operations group), the group trained in bombings," he said. Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer web site, in English 2 Mar 03 |