Suspected Egyptian terrorist arrested

COTABATO CITY –A combined police-Army team arrested yesterday a suspected Egyptian terrorist in a residential district here and found in his apartment materials used to fabricate homemade bombs and reading materials espousing religious extremism.

The foreigner, Mohammed El-Sayed, also known as Abu Hassan, is alleged to have links with both the al-Qaeda and the Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said El-Sayed did not resist arrest after sensing that policemen and soldiers had surrounded his house near the Mahad Islamic School in Campo Muslim here.

Ando said the arresting team was composed of operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the Cotabato City police and the 6th ID’s anti-crime Task Force Tugis.

Government security units have arrested more than a dozen suspicious foreigners, mostly of Middle Eastern origins, in Central Mindanao in the past three years.

Found in El-Sayed’s hideout were highly combustible charges, detonating cords for improvised explosives, nine-volt batteries and schematic wiring diagrams for battery-operated blasting mechanisms for bombs.

“The suspect is now undergoing interrogation,” Ando said.

Ando said intelligence operatives of the 6th ID are still hot on the trail of El-Sayed’s companions and contacts in Cotabato City and Shariff Kabunsuan.