AFP says Al-Ghozi slipped through military cordon

Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi has escaped a military dragnet in Lanao del Sur, a top military official said yesterday as he dismissed conflicting news reports that the self-confessed Jemaah Islamiyah bomber had been recaptured or killed while evading capture.

"The troops occupied the area where Al-Ghozi was thought to be hiding," Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko, chief of the military’s Southern Command, told reporters.

"But the troops found out that Al-Ghozi was no longer in the area. He probably slipped out before the soldiers got there." The manhunt is redeploying in another area, Kyamko said without elaborating.

Al-Ghozi was earlier reported to have been captured by the Army’s First Infantry "Tabak" Division in Lanao del Norte.

Chief Superintendent Arturo Lomibao, head of the intelligence directorate of the Philippine National Police (PNP), maintained that Al-Ghozi remains at large.

"In fact, I have been calling our Mindanao-based intelligence officers, and they, too, have not confirmed officially if Al-Ghozi is indeed or has been captured, is dead or arrested," he said.

However, military and police sources in the field insisted yesterday that Al-Ghozi had been captured by government elements led by an unidentified Army captain from the military intelligence.

An independent source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also confirmed Al-Ghozi’s capture.

PNP chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., accompanied by crack police officers from the Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response task force, quickly left yesterday for Mindanao for a still unknown reason.

Ebdane, whose relief was sought by critics following Al-Ghozi’s escape, was ordered by President Arroyo to lead the manhunt.

A source told The STAR that he himself was puzzled why Al-Ghozi’s capture was being kept secret.

"Perhaps politics, credit-grabbing and jealousy among politicians, the military and the PNP are the major factors why his re-arrest is being kept unofficial," he said.

Al-Ghozi’s capture was probably being kept secret because of other reasons that have to be kept classified by the intelligence community, the source added.

"We don’t know... what their plans are. But we must remember that Al-Ghozi is an international terrorist, and to bag key leaders of an international terrorist group you need to execute a play and Al-Ghozi could have been chosen as one of the actors of this play," he said without elaborating.

Government troops saturated Lanao del Sur last week in search of Al-Ghozi, leading to clashes with suspected units of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The President yesterday warned Muslim rebels to "stand aside" and deny sanctuary to Al-Ghozi. "The recapture of Al-Ghozi is vital to the cause of fighting transnational terrorism," she said in a statement.

The search was motivated by fears across Southeast Asia of more terrorist bombings following a deadly bomb attack on the US-run JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last week that was blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been linked to al-Qaeda. — With AFP, AP, Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Marvin Sy, Marichu Villanueva