The Philippine military was flying a captured leader of the Islamic Abu Sayyaf militants to Manila on Monday, giving President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a badly needed boost in a pre-election drive to appear tough on crime.

Ghalib Andang, widely known as Commander Robot, burst into prominence in 2000 when he and his men captured a group of tourists and workers from the Sipadan dive resort in nearby Malaysia.

They held the hostages, who included French, German, Finnish and South African nationals, for months on the remote island of Jolo before freeing them in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom.

Andang was wounded in a firefight with soldiers and captured on Jolo on Sunday. A triumphant military planned to parade him for Arroyo at their base in the capital.

"Relentless pressure is taking its toll and we will keep it up until all the terrorists are accounted for and they no longer pose a threat," Arroyo said in a statement.

Andang is one of the top leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, a group which claims to be fighting for an Islamic state in the southern Philippines but is mainly notorious for kidnappings. Washington has linked the group to the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.

Andang's capture came only two days after Arroyo lifted a moratorium on the death penalty, opening the way for the first executions in three years in response to a spate of kidnappings in Manila targeting the ethnic Chinese community.

Over the weekend, palace officials said that the moratorium would only be lifted for kidnappers and drug offenders, raising speculation that Arroyo was bowing to pressure from the wealthy and politically influential Chinese-Filipino community.

GRIP ON LAW AND ORDER

The abductions had fueled criticism that Arroyo, who has styled herself on Britain's former "Iron Lady" prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was losing grip on law and order ahead of next May's elections. Early opinion polls have shown her trailing.

Officials said the government would likely seek execution for Andang, who television pictures showed being carried on a stretcher into a hospital in Zamboanga on the main southern island of Mindanao after he was flown by helicopter from Jolo.

Underlining Arroyo's renewed commitment to curbing crime, police set up hundreds of checkpoints around Manila over the weekend, manned by 7,000 police officers and soldiers.

"I ask our people for cooperation and patience as we undertake this massive drive for law and order," Arroyo said in her statement. "This is for your own good."

While it may be a vote-winner in some quarters, the lifting of the death penalty freeze has risked alienating Arroyo's support base within the Roman Catholic Church, which helped propel her to power in 2001 when Joseph Estrada's presidency collapsed.

The government says Andang led the kidnapping of 21 hostages, about half of them Western tourists, from the Malaysian diving resort of Sipadan in April 2000.

The diminutive former driver for a local politician earned the nickname Robot for his ability to dance like one. At the height of the Sipadan kidnapping drama, he gave television interviews from Abu Sayyaf hideouts in the interior of Jolo and became a symbol of the ruthless tactics of the militant group.

The last of the Sipadan hostages, a Filipino cook, escaped earlier this year. The others had been released after millions of dollars in ransom were paid.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States sent more than 600 troops to the southern Philippines to advise and train the army in its fight against the group and the offensive has led to the capture or killing of several leaders.

"We have degraded the Abu Sayyaf group but they still have their leaders," armed forces chief General Narciso Abaya told reporters after arriving in Zamboanga.

"They can no longer mount massive kidnappings."

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