Sat, November 07, 2009
COTABATO, Philippines, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Philippine troops on Saturday arrested a suspected Al-Qaida linked Abu Sayyaf militant responsible for the beheading of Filipino Marines in the volatile south two years ago.
Asnawi Adan Sala, who is facing several murder charges, did not resist arrest when caught by police and military around 3:15 p.m. at the airport in the southern city of Zamboanga, regional police director Angel Sunglao told a local radio station.
Sala, now undergoing tactical interrogation at the headquarters of police, was implicated in July 2007 attack in the island province of Basilan that left 14 state troops dead, ten of them beheaded.
The 380-strong Abu Sayyaf group, founded in the early 1990s by Islamic extremists, is notorious for kidnappings, bombings and even beheadings in the South over the past decade.
The group was blacklisted by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization.
