Manila: A joint military and police operation arrested a renegade Filipino-Muslim rebel leader, whose group was identified as one of two rebel units behind the killing of 44 special police commandos last month, sources have said.

“Mohammad Ali Tambako and his companions, Mecharie Edio Gayak, Abusaham Guiamil, Ebrahim Kapina, Ali Ludisima, and Datukan, Sabiwang were aboard a tricycle when arrested in Calumpann Village, near General Santos City’s port area where they were about to board a ship and escape [around 9pm] on Sunday evening,” the Philippine Army said in a report on Monday.

The rebel leader’s group has been protecting a Filipino-Muslim bombmaker who escaped the same anti-terror operation in the south last month that claimed the Philippine police officers lives, the military said.

“Two short firearms and three fragmentation grenades were seized from them,” the report said, adding that Tambako’s group has been protecting expert bombmaker Abdul Basit Usman, who escaped the operation that is believed to have killed Malaysian wanted militant Zulkifli Bin Hir, alias Marwan, in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao on January 25.

“Now, Tambako could tell authorities if Usman is dead or wounded,” the report said. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has offered $5 million (Dh18.3 million) for Bin Hir’s head, and $1 million for Usman’s capture.

Tambako’s group was behind the killing of some of the 44 police Special Action Forces, the report said, adding the seven-year old Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), that left the 37-year old Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2008, was the other rebel group that engaged the officers last month.

Since the Philippine government and the MILF forged a pro-autonomy peace colony in 2014, they have been assisting each other in anti-terror operations in the south, but MILF’s participation in the mis-encounter made lawmakers reluctant in approving a bill that will legislate the agreement.

In 2013, Tambako left the BIFF, established his own group, and began giving sanctuary to five other foreign Islamists who have been hiding and training local militant groups to makes bombs in the south since 2003, the report said.

Tambako’s arrest warrant, signed by Judge Jorge Jabido of Cotabato City’s lower regional trial court, however, was in connection with his alleged participation in a terror attack that beheaded of farmer Ricarte Dionisio in a Christian community in Midsayap, Cotabato in 2013.

Meanwhile, 99,262 residents were displaced and 94,052 of them remained at evacuation centres.

Nearly 100 BIFF members and five soldiers died since clashes between began on January 27, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said, adding that several houses were damaged.

Classes were suspended for 20,632 students and 301 teachers in 48 public elementary and high schools in affected areas.

Maguindanao’s local government unit declared a state of calamity.