A Filipino who acted as a conduit for funds from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network to the Abu Sayyaf group in the southern Philippines has been arrested, the Philippine government says. Khair Malvan Mundus, 40, who studied Arabic in Saudi Arabia, was arrested last week by intelligence agents in the southern city of Zamboanga, Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita said. Mundus was a “direct intermediary of al-Qaeda funds,” channeled to Abu Sayyaf senior leader Khadaffy Janjalani to be used in “bombing and other terroristic activities,” he told a news conference. The funds financed a bombing that killed a US military adviser on Mindanao island in October 2002, he added. Mundus told investigators he funnelled more than 3.5 million pesos (about 63,000 dollars) from Al-Qaeda to the Abu Sayyaf for various kidnapping and bombing attacks, Ermita said. Among the attacks financed by this money was a bombing in the southern Philippines in October 2002 which killed an American soldier training local counter-terrorist soldiers and another blast in Kidapawan City later that month which killed seven people, Ermita said. Full Story
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