Two wives of a Muslim bandit leader, who led the kidnapping of three Red Cross workers, and four other suspected bandits have been arrested in Sulu province, the military announced Thursday.

Nabbed were Rowena Aksan, Nursima Annudden, Rabia Polalon Asiri, Marwina Salasain, Madrimar Bagadi and Midsfar Aksan.

Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban, Task Force Comet commander, said the first two women suspects are the first and third wives of Abu Sayyaf sub-leader Albader Parad while Salasain is a wife of two other suspected bandit bombers identified as Alvin Bagadi and Alhabsy Misaya.

Sabban said the first wife of Parad had involvement in the kidnapping of International Committee of the Red Cross members Mary Jean Lacaba, Andreas Notter and Eugenio Vagni last January 15 in Patikul town, Sulu province. Lacaba and Notters have been released by the kidnappers while Vagni, an Italian, remains in captivity.

"All the persons arrested are suspected [of] providing logistical and service support in terms of vehicle, purchase and delivery of food and similar commodities to their bandit ASG cohorts," the military said in a statement.

Sabban said seized from the suspects were "crisp bills" amounting to P7,000 and three bundles of money worth P300,000.

He said the six suspects were being interrogated for their possible involvement in the deadly bombing near a church in downtown Jolo on Tuesday, which left at least six people dead and scores wounded.

Sabban said the suspects were arrested at a checkpoin in Barangay Tagbak in Indanan town, Sulu province, three hours after the deadly Jolo bombing.

He said the suspects also yielded a cellular phone. He said the military "has reason to suspect" that the mobile phone was used as a triggering device of a bomb that exploded in Jolo.

Meanwhile, agents from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday morning arrested a man who possibly planted the bomb that exploded in Iligan City, Lanao del Norte more than two hours after the Jolo bombing.

The NBI said the suspect was almost "identical" to the man seen on a CCTV camera footage planting a bomb in an abandoned vehicle at the corner of Cabayle Street and Cabili AVenue in Barangay Poblacion around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The bureau, however, refused to identify the man. It said the suspect was undergoing tactical interrogation.

A total of 22 people were wounded in the Iligan City bombing. The bomb went off as a military convoy was passing the area.

The blast damaged two units of a two-story commercial building and five vehicles. With reports from Noel Alamar, radio dzMM and Ronnie Enderes, ABS-CBN Northern Mindanao