Manila says destroys militant cell on resort island

MANILA, Sep 8 (Reuters) Philippine soldiers have arrested four members of the al Qaeda-linked group Abu Sayyaf, a military spokesman said today, destroying a potentially dangerous militant cell on a western resort island.

The men were arrested following a raid on Palawan island, popular with tourists for its beaches and diving spots, and officials said the cell could have been plotting to stage kidnappings.

''They were linked to several murder and kidnapping cases in the south,'' Lieutenant-Colonel Jacinto de Vera said, adding the raid followed a tip-off from residents.

The Abu Sayyaf, the deadliest of the Muslim groups operating in the south of the archipelago, is blamed for the killing of 100 people in a ferry bombing near Manila bay in 2004, the Philippines' worst attack.

De Vera said one of the arrested men, known by his alias as Abu Mogera, was believed to be an understudy of Indonesian militant Dulmatin, one of the key suspects in the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, most of them Australian tourists.

Dulmatin remains at large.

Security forces were also checking information that Abu Mogera may have been involved in the 2001 abduction of 20 Filipino and foreign tourists, including US missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, de Vera said.

Martin was killed in the crossfire during a rescue attempt in June 2002, while his wife was shot in the leg. A third American, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf.

The four arrested men were believed to have fled the southern island of Jolo, where thousands of army troops were hunting down about 200 Muslim rebels sheltering a handful of Indonesian militants, intelligence sources said.

REUTERS LPB PM1515