Man with 6,000 blasting caps nabbed at Jolo ferry terminal
Alert extended to Zamboanga port
By Ed General
Agence France-Presse, Inquirer, Associated Press
Last updated 06:49pm (Mla time) 08/17/2006
JOLO, Sulu -- (3RD UPDATE) Philippine Marines on Thursday morning arrested a man carrying a backpack filled with 6,000 blasting caps onboard a ferry docked at the port here, officials said.
"Those could have helped trigger a horrific explosion causing many civilian casualties," southern Philippines military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Susthenes Valcorza told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Mayor Alkramer Izquierdo said Roy Abdul, a resident of Barangay Tulay here, was “acting suspicious,” prompting the soldiers to inspect his bag.
But Marine Major Hernani Songgano, who heads the Jolo Internal Defense Force, said Roy Abdul was the alias used by Modjahirin Malik, 45, an alleged member of the Moro National Liberation Front, to buy his ferry ticket. He could face charges of illegal possession of explosive materials.
Malik was taken into custody while maritime police threw a security cordon around the terminal.
The alert was extended to Zamboanga, from where the M/V Queen Emily had sailed on Wednesday night, port authorities said.
Songgano said Malik was likely aware of what he was carrying because he initially refused inspection.
An unidentified woman who allegedly brought most of the cargo onto the ferry disappeared, he said. He said there will be more stringent inspection of female passengers and their cargo as a result of the seizure.
A search of his clothing also found what "appeared to be a detonation cord" in one of his pockets, police said.
The M/V Queen Emilia ferry was cleared of passengers and crew and the suspect backpack moved to an empty lot at the port, where bomb-sniffing dogs confirmed the presence of explosives components.
The ferry, which carries about a hundred passengers, makes overnight runs to Jolo from the southern city of Zamboanga, where the suspect had come from.
But at the Jolo Police Station where he was detained, Malik denied owning the bag, claiming a friend had left it with him.
"It was left by a friend who told me to watch over the bag because he had to go to the ticketing office," Malik said.
Jolo is a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, a militant Islamic group with alleged ties to foreign Muslim cells accused of terrorist attacks.The Abu Sayyaf was blamed for the firebombing of a ferry on Manila Bay in February 2004 that claimed more than 100 lives.
Last month two policemen and an Abu Sayyaf suspect were killed in a firefight at Zamboanga port's passenger terminal after metal detectors found a gun in a suspect's luggage. Three other police officers were wounded.
