Military Action
The military has intensified its intelligence operation against the Abu Sayyaf following the arrest of a Filipino-American allegedly selling illegal weapons to the Al-Qaeda linked group. Security forces have arrested Victor Moore Infante in Zamboanga for selling weapons to the extremist group. The 34-year old man was tagged by authorities as "one of the United States most wanted fugitives."
His arrest was made secret and announced by the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation. Infante, who was reported to have traveled to Basilan, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, had been deported to Guam. Federal agents escorted the Filipino-American, who was also suspected of planning to smuggle illegal drugs to the Philippines. United States authorities have issued a warrant for the arrest of Infante in New York after Customs men in July 2003 seized one of his package from Oakland containing weapons’ parts addressed to his safehouse in Zamboanga City.
"His arrest and deportation is another big step in our campaign against terrorism because this man is known to have aided the Abu Sayyaf in acquiring weapons used by the group in committing atrocities against our soldiers and civilians," Philippine immigration chief Andrea Domingo said in a statement.
The United States in 2002 included the Abu Sayyaf in its list of foreign terrorist organization, along side with the Al-Qaeda network and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiya. Philippine authorities tagged the group as behind the kidnapping and killing of two United States hostages Guillermo Sobero and Martin Burnham in Mindanao.
Read more about this topic: Abu Sayyaf
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or action:
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“All real freedom springs from necessity, for it can be gained only through the exercise of the individual will, and that will can be roused to energetic action only by the force of necessity acting upon it from the outside to spur it to effort.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)