Terror group targeting Jolo-Zambo vessels

ZAMBOANGA CITY — The terror group of the suspected bombing expert captured in Sulu last Monday had targeted vessels plying between this city and Jolo, the military said.

Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Teodosio, Marine commander, said the group of Aldzhezar Salapuddin Jila, 20, was planning to plant improvised bombs particularly in the fastcraft of the Alesson shipping company.

The company, he said, had received threats from the group.

The military believes that Jila is a member of the five-man "urban terrorist group" of the Abu Sayyaf under a certain Khatab.

Teodosio presented Jila and the cache of improvised explosive devices seized from his safehouse in Jolo, to the media yesterday at the new headquarters of the Marines Forces South in the Cabatangan complex here.

"They were caught with the materials they had assembled into bombs which we figured out they planned to use to target shipping companies in the south," Teodosio said.

Two other members of Jila’s group managed to escape during the raid.

He said investigation showed that the terror group was planning to plant improvised bombs fashioned from 81-mm. mortar shells with electronic remote-controlled triggering devices.

"Even one of these mortar bombs exploding in the right place would sink a modest-sized ship. You can just imagine (the effect) if there were five of them," Teodosio said.

Teodosio, however, could not say if Jila’s group was behind the explosion in a SuperFerry vessel a few months ago.

He said he is sure that Jila belongs to the extremist Abu Sayyaf, but could not say if he has links with the Indonesian-based terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

But he said the sophistication of the improvised explosive devices seized from Jila points to a much bigger, more organized group like the JI.

"By what we can deduce, whoever is making these improvised explosive devices has ample training in how to make bombs," he said.

Teodosio said Jila’s capture has bolstered the military’s war against terrorism.

"We are aggressively pursuing our campaign against terrorism. Sooner or later, these ruthless and merciless terrorists will be caught," he said.

Commodore George Uy, chief of the Naval Force in Western Mindanao, said Jila’s capture was the result of the intelligence work of Marine and naval intelligence agents.