Top Abu Sayyaf rebel 'arrested'

President Arroyo showed off the suspects to the media

Police in Manila have captured a man say is a senior member of the Muslim extremist group, Abu Sayyaf.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo joined her national police chief at a news conference to parade Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale and three other bombing suspects.

Abu Sayyaf are blamed for many attacks in the south, such as a Zamboanga bomb

Mr Gumbahale - also known as Dr Abu - was arrested while playing a video game in an internet cafe in Manila.

He has been accused of involvement in a wave of bombings and kidnappings and a bounty of nearly $100,000 had been offered for his capture.

National Police Chief Hermogenes Ebdane said Mr Gumbahale would be charged with the kidnapping of 21 mostly foreign tourists and workers from Malaysia's Sipadan dive resort in 2000 and with the kidnapping of schoolteachers and students in Basilan island in 1999.

Murders 'admitted'

Police said their suspect had admitted taking part in the beheadings of at least two hostages who could not pay ransoms and of nine captured soldiers, though he claimed he was acting on orders from other leaders.

Officers said he also bore responsibility for bomb attacks in Manila in December 2000 which killed around 20 people.

The US has given training to Philippines troops to tackle Abu Sayyaf

Mr Gumbahale has been identified as a close henchman of Abu Sabaya, the group's leader, who was killed in a military ambush in June.

Abu Sayyaf is notorious for kidnapping foreigners and Christians in the southern Philippines and holding them for hefty ransoms.

There have been claims that the group is linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and US troops have held exercises to train Philippines soldiers to help combat the threat.

The rebels, who want an independent Islamic state, are mainly active in the southern Philippines but they are also blamed for attacks elsewhere, including Friday's bus bombing in the capital, Manila.

Let us not be cowed into submission by those who seek to terrorise us

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Two people died in that blast - the second deadly bombing in two days and the fourth in two weeks.

President Arroyo appealed for calm on Saturday, saying that police had "already prevented some attacks", although she did not elaborate.

"Let us not be cowed into submission by those who seek to terrorise us... keep calm, be alert," she said in a nationally broadcast address.

The three other suspects shown to the media on Saturday are accused of planting a bomb at a busy bus station in Kidapawan City in the southern Philippines last week.

Six people were killed in that blast.