Security is tightened in the Philippine capital ahead of Catholic Holy Week
Philippine police yesterday announced the arrest of two more members of an Islamic militant cell suspected of planning bomb attacks in Manila, as the government tightened security in the capital ahead of the Catholic Holy Week.
A police official said the two were caught on Sunday while meeting police agents posing as Islamic radicals in Manila. Only one of the suspects arrested yesterday was identified. Police named him as Walter Ancheta Villanueva, adding he had converted to Islam and taken the name Abdul Wali.
Five of the six bomb plot suspects captured so far are Muslim converts, police said, while the sixth, identified as Alhamser Manatad Limbon or 'Kosovo' and tagged as the group's leader, is alleged to be a second cousin of Abu Sayyaf chief Khaddafy Manatad Janjalani. The Abu Sayyaf is a home-grown terrorist group largely based in the remote islands of Jolo and Basilan in the southern Philippines.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had hailed the four breakthrough arrests on Tuesday as averting a 'Madrid-type' atrocity in Manila.
The March 11 bombings in the Spanish capital claimed more than 190 lives and injured 1,800 people.
