Top Sayyaf leader captured

ZAMBOANGA CITY — A top leader of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group which kidnapped American Jeffrey Schilling in 2000 has been captured in Tawi-Tawi, the military announced yesterday.

Binang Andang, a Sulu-based Abu Sayyaf leader with a P1-million bounty on his head, was captured at his hideout in Tawi-Tawi late Friday.

Other reports said Andang was captured while on a ferry. Military intelligence agents disguised as ferry passengers apprehended the bandit leader shortly before the vessel arrived in Tawi-Tawi from Jolo, reports said.

In a separate incident, a suspected Abu Sayyaf member was killed in a clash with military forces yesterday in nearby Bonggao, the capital town of Tawi-Tawi, officials said.

Andang, on the other hand, was reportedly captured by joint military intelligence agents led by Capt. Feliciano Angue and Col. Juancho Sabban, head of the Army’s Anti-Terrorism Unit.

The military said Andang will be formally presented to the media by Commodore George Uy next week.

Andang, who led the group which held Schilling for almost nine months, has also been linked to numerous kidnappings over the years, including the abduction of 53 students and teachers in the island-province of Basilan in early-2000.

The military said Andang and his group beheaded Fr. Rhoel Gallardo and four teachers they had taken hostage.

Andang is a cousin of senior Abu Sayyaf chief Ghalib Andang, popularly known as Commander Robot, the leader of the bandit group which abducted 21 foreign and Filipino hostages from the neighboring Malaysian resort of Sipadan in April 2000. Commander Robot was captured last October.

The military said Andang led the group that lured Schilling into their lair in Jolo in August 2000. Schilling is married to a Filipino, a cousin of one of the bandit leaders. The American ended up being a captive by the Abu Sayyaf on suspicions that he was a spy of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After almost nine months in captivity, Schilling was later found by soldiers barefoot and pockmarked with mosquito bites when they rescued him in Lu’uk town in Jolo.

The troops found Schilling chained in a hut, freed him and took him to a nearby military base for treatment.

Schilling was found 10 days after President Arroyo ordered an "all-out war" against the Abu Sayyaf.

Mrs. Arroyo presented Schilling to the media and disclosed the military and been following the information provided on them pinpointing the whereabouts of Andang and his group holding the American hostage.

Following a brief gun battle, Schilling was left in hurry by the bandits until he was found by the soldiers.

The Abu Sayyaf attracted international attention with a yearlong kidnapping spree that began in May 2001. They eventually killed 18 of the 102 hostages they took.

The bandit group also stormed an upscale resort in Palawan in May 2001, seizing US missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, American tourist Guillermo Sobero and 17 Filipino workers and tourists.

Sobero and two Filipino workers were beheaded by the bandits and the others were ransomed off, released or had escaped.

Gracia Burnham was wounded in a commando rescue in June 2002, but her husband and Filipino nurse Edibora Yap were killed.

She returned to Manila this week to testify against her abductors.

Before returning to the United States late Friday, Burnham said in a statement that she testified because, "I would love to see your fair land free from terror."

The kidnapping spree by the Abu Sayyaf prompted the United States to deploy American forces to help Filipino troops crush the bandit group and rescue the hostages. Washington also put up a $5-million bounty for the capture of the Abu Sayyaf’s top leaders, who were indicted in a US court the same year. - With AFP