MANILA, Philippines — Philippine troops have captured a Muslim explosives expert suspected in several terrorist attacks, including five nearly simultaneous bombings that killed 22 people in Manila in 2000, officials said today.
Army troops and police surrounded Anzar Venancio’s hide-out at dawn in the predominantly southern Muslim city of Marawi. Venancio surrendered soon after, and he was flown to Manila for investigation, police Superintendent Danilo Bacas said.
National police chief Jesus Versoza told reporters that Venancio is a bomb-maker who has passed on his skills to Muslim militant recruits for years.
He is suspected of helping plot a number of attacks, including nearly simultaneous bombings in a commuter train and four other Manila areas that killed 22 people in 2000, Bacas said. He has also been linked to a deadly bombing near southern Davao city’s airport, and a court in Davao has issued a warrant for his arrest.
Venancio also has worked with Indonesian members of the regional Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah hiding in southern Mindanao region. Jemaah Islamiyah is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. for receiving al-Qaida training and funding and for carrying out attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings.
The suspected bomber is a brother of Omar Venancio, a Filipino militant who was captured in January and has also been accused of helping Jemaah Islamiyah, Bacas said.
Several Jemaah Islamiyah militants have been hiding in the southern Philippines, scene of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion, to provide training to Indonesian and Filipino Muslim rebel recruits, according to the military.
One of them, Umar Patek, fled to the south a year after helping plot the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia that killed 202 people, the military said.
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