MANILA: Philippine police said on Wednesday they had arrested a Filipino Islamic militant suspected of taking part in at least one deadly kidnapping raid on a Malaysian diving resort island.

Hundreds of members of a police special force unit were deployed to arrest Abu Sayyaf member Mobin Hailil at a remote village in the Tawi-Tawi archipelago near the Malaysian sea border on Tuesday, they said.

“When local police located him we were called in because they knew members of his clan would fight back,” Filipino police special forces director Getulio Napenas said.

The suspect, a Tawi-Tawi native and a “leader” of Abu Sayyaf members based on the island, did not resist arrest but a loaded handgun and a grenade were seized from him, Napenas added.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2014