The Philippines says it has captured one of the top operatives of Southeast Asian militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah.
Defence Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Taufik Rifqi was arrested on October 2 in a hotel in Cotabato city on the southern island of Mindanao, where the military is battling a host of Muslim rebel groups fighting for an Islamic state.
"It seems he is no. 3 in Southeast Asia," Ermita said of Rafqi's rank in Jemaah Islamiah, which has been blamed for last year's bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali and accused of links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Security officials announced the arrest of Taufik hours before US President George W. Bush arrived in Manila on Saturday for talks with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on boosting cooperation in their war on terror.
Taufik was apparently using the hotel to establish links with other Muslim militants, Ermita said.
"The intelligence reports I received was that he was Jemaah Islamiah's no. 2 man in the Philippines," Ermita added.
Jemaah's top operative in the Philippines, bomb expert Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, was shot dead in what police said was a shootout near Cotabato less than a week before Bush's visit.
Al-Ghozi was killed three months after he escaped from a police maximum security compound in Manila.
Bush praised the Philippines as a major partner in the war on terror and pledged more aid to help the country fight Muslim militants.
US troops have been training Philippine soldiers in counter-terrorism since last year