Five suspects in Philippines church bombing in custody

A man suspected of helping two suicide bombers carry out the deadly twin blasts on the small Philippine island of Jolo has surrendered, security officials announced on Monday (Feb 4).

Kammah Pae, whom authorities believe to have aided an Indonesian couple in the Jan 27 suicide attack, gave himself up to government troops, Oscar Albayalde said.

"He was forced to surrender," Albayalde told a media briefing. "He probably didn't want to die during the military offensive."

Philippine troops killed three suspected Abu Sayyaf militants and suffered five fatalities in a firefight on Saturday in Patikul, a town in the province of Sulu as troops pursued those behind the church attack.

Kammah was said to have conspired with the Indonesian couple who blew themselves up minutes apart, one inside and the other outside, a Roman Catholic cathedral on tiny Jolo island, in the largely Muslim province of Sulu, in war-torn Mindanao Island, on Jan 27.

Albayalde said Kammah denied involvement in the twin bombings at the Jolo cathedral that killed 23 people, including civilians and soldiers, but eyewitnesses' accounts showed he escorted the Indonesian couple.

Security forces also retrieved an improvised explosive device (IED) and components from his home, Albayalde added.

Albayalde said the Indonesians sailed south-west to Jolo from Lampinigan Island, in Basilan province, on Jan 24.

They were in Lampinigan “for a few days”. Albayalde said it could not be ascertained if the two went to the island straight from Indonesia, or had been around Mindanao for far longer.

The Indonesian man reportedly used the nom de guerre Abu Hud.

For three days, Kammah provided the Indonesian couple shelter and escorted them around the island, where the two met with Hatib Sawadjaan, the purported ring leader of the Ajang-ajang faction of the Abu Sayyaf.

Albayalde said Sawadjaan and his Ajang-ajang cohorts had plotted the attack for “almost a year”.

He said security forces were still hunting 14 more suspects, including Sawadjaan and another Indonesian.