Philippine police have arrested a suspected Islamist militant who allegedly helped guard a group of tourists kidnapped in 2001 including an American missionary who was later killed, the justice department said Monday. Abdullah is accused of guarding hostages including US citizen Martin Burnham, who was killed in June 2002 after 13 months of kidnapping him and a group of 20 tourists at an upscale western Philippine resort, including another American, who was later beheaded. Abdullah was arrested on February 27 in the southern port city of Zamboanga. Abdullah was a member of Abu Sayyaf, an Al-Qaeda-linked group blamed for the archipelago’s deadliest bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings in recent decades, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said. Last August, the Islamist gunmen killed nine people and injured 10 others as they attacked a town in the Philippines at dawn burning houses in which women and children were sleeping.