MANILA, Philippines?The Philippine government has asked the Basilan Regional Trial Court to outlaw the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group and blacklist its members, in a move that would allow the authorities to more speedily freeze the bandits? bank assets and obtain clearance to tap their phone conversations.

News of the government move came as the military and police stepped up security in urban centers, including Metro Manila, to preempt any bombings by the bandit group.

Officials raised the possibility of such retaliatory attacks after police commandos last weekend stormed a hideout of the Abu Sayyaf in Maimbung, Sulu, and killed three Abu Sayyaf bandits, including their group commander.

Elsewhere, three explosions rocked Cotabato City and an adjacent town early Monday and last weekend but police said these had nothing to do with the Abu Sayyaf. No one was hurt in the blasts, which police believed were carried out by extortion gangs.

Legal weapon

The Department of Justice formally sought to outlaw the Abu Sayyaf in a petition filed recently with the trial court in Basilan province?the group?s birthplace?in the first known government attempt to ban a rebel group under a 2007 antiterrorism law.

The justice department also sought to blacklist more than 200 members of the Abu Sayyaf, which has an estimated 400 members.

Currently, members of the Abu Sayyaf cannot be arrested unless they commit a crime.

If approved by the Basilan court, the measure would criminalize membership in the Abu Sayyaf and allow authorities to freeze financial assets of militants more rapidly and limit their travel.

Prosecutor Al Calica said authorities would also be able to secure court permission faster to monitor phone conversations and look into bank accounts of blacklisted terrorists.

It would serve as a new legal weapon against the group, which has survived years of US-backed offensives, according to State Prosecutor Nestor Lazaro.

?This will help cripple the group,? Lazaro told The Associated Press.

Innocent lives

The petition cited 20 major bombings and atrocities allegedly committed by the Abu Sayyaf, including a 2004 attack that ignited an inferno on a ferry that killed 116 people, and the kidnappings of dozens of mostly European tourists and three Americans in early 2000.

The Abu Sayyaf is determined to pursue jihad, or holy war, ?in any shape or form ? without regard to violation of laws or even sacrificing innocent lives,? according to the 22-page petition, which cited the Abu Sayyaf?s charter.

Founded in 1991, the Abu Sayyaf has staged terrorist attacks with help from Osama bin Laden?s al-Qaida network, the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, and a special assault unit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), according to the petition. The MILF has denied any such link.

The United States has listed the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group and deployed hundreds of troops to Mindanao in 2002 to provide combat training, weapons and intelligence to Filipino soldiers.

Vital installations

The chief of the Philippine National Police, Director General Jesus Verzosa, ordered the tightening of security in vital installations in Metro Manila and other urban centers, according to PNP spokesperson Senior Supt. Agrimero Cruz.

?Here in Metro Manila and elsewhere ? the PNP chief has given directives to double security in airports, seaports, our mass transit systems and places where our people congregate, like churches, malls, markets and schools,? Cruz told reporters.

The directive was given to regional and provincial commanders, as well as chiefs of police.

The PNP on Monday declared a Mindanao-wide alert after units of the Special Action Force (SAF) and the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao killed three Abu Sayyaf bandits, including subcommander Gafur Jumdail, in a raid in Lapa village in Maimbung town on Saturday night.

?The Bomber?

Jumdail?s elder brother, Umbra Gumbahali Jumdail, who goes by the alias ?Doctor Abu,? is regarded as the Abu Sayyaf?s bombing expert who has been involved in past bombing attacks, said an Armed Forces spokesperson.

?It has been decided by the PNP and the AFP that a higher level of alert be instituted considering the elder brother is a very significant leader of the group. In fact he?s called ?The Bomber.? He can perpetrate anything,? Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said.

Mabanta said the bombings in Central Mindanao were not necessarily perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf.

On the possibility that retaliatory attacks could reach the capital, Mabanta said: ?Certainly terrorism chooses no time and place. The Armed Forces and Philippine National Police are ready.?

Trusted commanders

Lt. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, said the slain Jumdail was notorious for kidnapping and extortion.

?Even ordinary folks are being extorted by Gafur?s group,? he said.

Dolorfino said Gafur Jumdail held a position in the group equivalent to that of Albader Parad, who was also killed in Maimbung town in February.

?Parad and this Jumdail were the most trusted and reliable subcommanders of Doctor Abu. Now, he (Doctor Abu) is crippled,? Dolorfino said.

The Inquirer learned that the bodies of the slain bandits had been left at the laboratory room of Villa Funeral Homes in Zamboanga City.

?We were told some tests will be conducted on the cadavers and these bodies will be immediately buried in Muslim rites, but since Monday no one from the police has come and some relatives wanted to get the bodies,? said a funeral home employee.

Not Abu Sayyaf?

One of the relatives denied those killed were Abu Sayyaf members.

?Those people are not Abu Sayyaf. They are members of the Moro National Liberation Front,? a female relative, who asked not to be identified, said in Tausug.

Police still could not say who the two other slain men were. Dolorfino denied an earlier police report that the two were sons of Doctor Abu.

?They were simply identified by the people in Maimbung as Nagdar and Aljimel Jala,? Dolorfino said. ?They were not sons of Doctor Abu. It?s possible that the police got it wrong.?

On Sunday, Supt. Jose Bayani Gucela, a PNP spokesperson in Western Mindanao, said two of those killed were sons of Doctor Abu. Gucela would not answer phone calls Monday. Reports from Associated Press, Dona Pazzibugan and Alcuin Papa in Manila, and Julie S. Alipala and Edwin O. Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao