MANILA: Philippine security forces arrested a key member of the country’s main Muslim rebel group, officials said yesterday, potentially undermining a peace deal aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency that has left tens of thousands dead.
Wahid Tundok, described by the military as a “high value target” and senior member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), was arrested on Sunday as he passed through a joint military and police roadblock escorted by armed bodyguards near the southern city of Cotabato, police said.
Authorities said Tundok had outstanding warrants of arrest for various criminal offences, including arson, although members of the MILF’s peace panel said he had been actively helping out in the peace process and was supposed to be covered by an immunity guarantee from the government.
“He was arrested along with his armed followers while onboard a pickup truck at the police-military check point,” said regional police chief Superintendent Jovit Culaway.
Culaway said high-powered firearms were confiscated from Tundok, described as a Muslim cleric who heads one of the 12,000-strong MILF’s “base commands” on the volatile southern island of Mindanao.
He said Tundok was “a high value target” being kept at a military base in the south.
MILF political affairs chief Ghazali Jaafar said they had protested against the arrest, and were demanding Tundok’s immediate release through a joint ceasefire mechanism.
AFP
