SHARIFF AGUAK, MAGUINDANAO—The continuing discovery of state-issued armaments hidden in purported estates of the Ampatuans has dumbfounded military officials.
On Tuesday night, missiles and ammunition with sufficient power to obliterate a small town were found by soldiers in a huge warehouse allegedly owned by Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr.
The missiles, including “illuminating rockets,” were stashed between two concrete walls of a storage area just a few meters from the province’s main public market in Barangay San Sebastian.
“We were really stunned by this discovery,” Lt. Col. Michael Samson, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Maguindanao, Wednesday told the Inquirer.
“Only government forces are allowed to have these high explosives. The supply of some of these is limited,” Samson said, adding that the seized items could meet the needs of a battalion of soldiers fighting secessionist rebels.
...“You can just imagine the damage it could cause if these rocket warheads are used by criminal elements to sow terror,” he said. [evidently missing the irony - ed.]He said the AFP had started looking into the firearms and bullets that carried the markings “Government Arsenal DND (Department of National Defense).”
“I’m confident that we will eventually trace the source of these explosives,” Samson said.
2. FBI questions US suspects held in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have started questioning five suspects who had been missing from Washington and were arrested in eastern Pakistan this week, police sources said Thursday.
...Earlier, it was reported that the U.S. federal investigators were searching for a Howard University dental student and four other Muslim men reportedly missing from the Washington DC area at the end of last month.
According to local reports, three of the men are Americans of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other is of Yemeni heritage.
Local TV channels reported that an FBI team arrived in Sargodha early Thursday and started questioning the arrested men at undisclosed location. The FBI had been searching for the men since their families reported them missing and expressed fears they may have gone to Pakistan.
3. Swede held in Pakistan on terror charges
A Swedish national is reportedly among five terror suspects arrested in Pakistan on suspicions of plotting a militant attack, Pakistani authorities said on Wednesday. The five were arrested in Sargodha, south of Islamabad, at the home of a member of the banned militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, Pakistani district police chief Usman Anwar told AFP Wednesday.
Pakistani officials said the men were two Yemenis, one Egyptian, one Swede and a Pakistani-American. Muslim leaders in Washington said the men had been living in northern Virginia, close to the US capital, with their families until they disappeared last month.
An official at the Pakistani embassy in Washington said they are "all of US origin," but Federal Bureau of Investigations officials gave no confirmation of their nationalities.
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