Philippine authorities have arrested three suspects in a series of bombings that killed more than a dozen people in 2003, the military announced on Friday.

"The three suspects, who had links with the Abu Sayyaf group, were captured during a raid on Thursday in Sultan Kudarat, southern Philippines by a combined team of soldiers and policemen, " said Salvador Calanoy, chief of the military-led Task Group Kutabato.

Calanoy said the authorities recovered two pistols, explosives and chemicals for making bombs from the three suspects, who did not resist arrest.

Aside from the series of blasts in General Santos City and South Cotabato that killed more than a dozen people in 2003, the three suspects were also allegedly involved in several kidnappings, said Superintendent Roberto Badian, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Mindanao.

The Abu Sayyaf is an Islamist terrorist separatist group based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines. The group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and extortion in their fight for establishing an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.

Source: Xinhua