Arrested Abu Sayyaf leader refuses to cooperate with probers

A captured ranking Abu Sayyaf leader has clammed up before military investigators, frustrating attempts to extract a confirmation that international terrorist Osama bin Laden was extending financial aid to his group.

Sources said Mohammad Faizal Ijajil Dompal, alias Faizal Abbas, who was captured in Sampaloc, Manila on Tuesday, would not even give the interrogators the time of day, invoking his constitutional right to remain silent.

"He kept his mouth shut," a policeman who took part in Dompal’s arrest told The STAR.

Jimmy Theng, one of two suspected Abu Sayyaf leaders arrested before Dompal, has alleged that his group received direct support from Afghanistan-based Bin Laden, who is widely believed to have masterminded last week’s terrorist attacks in Washington DC and New York City.

Dompal, who carries a P1-million bounty on his head, was collared in his hideout on Earnshaw street in Sampaloc by joint elements of the National Capital Region Police Office and the Army’s intelligence and security group on the strength of an arrest warrant issued by Basilan Regional Trial Court Judge Danilo Bacoy.

The arresting team confiscated from Dompal a handgun and important documents.

Terrorists hijacked four commercial jetliners, two of which slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, while the third sliced through the Pentagon in Washington.

The fourth aircraft crashed into a field in Pennsylvania amid reports that some of its passengers wrestled with the hijackers.

Philippine authorities believed that Dompal fled to Manila to avoid being embroiled in a squabble within the Abu Sayyaf hierarchy, and ruled out the possibility that the suspect was on a terrorist mission in the city.

Meanwhile, two more suspected Abu Sayyaf members were nabbed by combined elements of the police and the Marine intelligence unit Friday evening in Zamboanga City.

The suspects were identified as Anni Sailani alias Omar Abubakar who carries a P150,000-prize on his head, and Itting Sailani.

Anni was believed responsible for the June 7 abduction of Ma. Teresa Raz-Agsalona in Sumisip town in Basilan island.

The victim was taken to Sulu where the kidnappers allegedly abused her.

Government forces are still tracking down a main Abu Sayyaf band in Basilan still holding an American missionary couple and 16 Filipino hostages. – Non Alquitran, Roel Pareño