At least nine women were arrested over plot to blow up military targets in the troubled southern Philippines, the country’s army sources confirmed on Tuesday.
Philippines security forces arrested and detained the jihadi women and seized bomb-making equipment following a intelligence-led operations conducted on Muslim-majority Jolo island, a stronghold of the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf group.
Initial reports indicate that, most of the women were the daughters or widows of slain Abu Sayyaf fighters and included also included “potential suicide bombers,”. Increased terror incidents perpetrated by women jihadists continue to be reported with Philippines reporting a number of such incidents.
Philippine authorities are worried of how desperate the remaining terrorists are, that they are willing to sacrifice their families just to get back at government forces.
Further reports indicate that the nabbed women have been providing financial besides logistical to their relatives in in Abu Sayyaf and that they allegedly planned to attack soldiers with improvised explosive devices.
Three of the women are the daughters of the slain Abu Sayyaf leader Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who was accused of planning the deadly attack on Jolo cathedral in 2019 which left at least 21 people killed.
Their arrest comes six months after a pair of female suicide bombers, including an Indonesian, blew themselves up on Jolo, killing 15 people and wounding 74 others.
Listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of Islamist militants blamed for the Philippines’ worst terror attacks, kidnappings, targeting security forces, foreign tourists and Christian missionaries.
