Manila says arrests 3 more militants on resort isle

MANILA, Sep 10 (Reuters) Philippine troops have arrested three Islamic militants on the resort island of Palawan and a spokesman said today that they had been part of a cell plotting kidnappings and bombings in tourist areas.

Troops arrested the three men yesterday after four members of the cell were taken into custody last week.

Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said two suspected members of the radical Abu Sayyaf group had been arrested in the town of Espanola, which is dominated by members of the country's Muslim minority.

Hours later, military commandos stormed the house of a Muslim teacher in nearby Puerto Princesa City, seizing blasting caps, electrical wiring and chemicals used for making bombs, an army intelligence official said.

The intelligence official said Ustadz Zainudin Gumubat, the head of a local madrasa called the al-Farouk Institute, was also arrested for links to Abu Sayyaf.

The Abu Sayyaf, the smallest but deadliest Muslim rebel group in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country, is blamed for the killing of 100 people in a ferry bombing near Manila bay in 2004, the Philippines' worst attack.

REUTERS JT KP1242