ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 17 Jan) – A senior Abu Sayyaf leader wanted by the United States for the kidnapping and killing of two American citizens had been killed by Filipino troops in a clash Tuesday on the southern island of Jolo, a security spokesman told the Mindanao Examiner.
Army Major Eugene Batara, spokesman for the Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City, said troops recovered the body of Jainal Antel Sali, Jr. alias Abu Solaiman in Mt. Daho in Talipao town.
Sali, 41, a native of Basilan island, acted as spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf until his death. “He is dead. Abu Solaiman is killed in the fighting. His death is a big blow to the Abu Sayyaf,” Batara said.
The military earlier reported that an Abu Sayyaf militant was killed and said that Solaiman had been wounded in the fighting.
Sali was included in the U.S. list of most wanted Abu Sayyaf terror leader and had been implicated in the kidnappings and killings of California man Guillermo Sobero in 2001 and Kansas missionary Martin Burnham in 2002. Gracia Burnham was eventually rescued in 2002 by U.S.-led Filipino soldiers after a firefight in Zamboanga del Norte province.
He was also linked to the kidnapping of U.S. citizen Jeffrey Craig Schilling in 2000 in Jolo island.Schilling eventually managed to escape from captivity on April 12, 2001.
Schilling was held hostage for more than seven months by the Abu Sayyaf and during his captivity, some of the demands made by the Abu Sayyaf were the release of international terrorist Ramsey Yousef and the blind Muslim cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman from U.S. prison, the withdrawal of American forces from the Middle East and the payment of $10 million in ransom.
A U.S. government dossier on Sali said he had planned and perpetrated several brutal acts of terrorism involving kidnapping U.S. and foreign nationals and bombing civilian targets.
In April 2004, Sali helped supervise members of the Abu Sayyaf’s Urban Terror Group for planned bombing activities.
Filipino authorities filed charges against Sali and two other leaders for their involvement in a series of bombings in October 2002 in Zamboanga City that killed at least a dozen Filipino civilians, an American soldier and wounding more than 200 others.
Sali also headed the unit responsible for the October 17, 2002, bombings of two department stores in Zamboanga City. He also planned the May 2001 Dos Palmas resort kidnapping in the central Philippine island of Palawan where they took 20 hostages, including Burnham and his wife, Gracia and Guillermo Sobero.
During the movement of the hostages in June 2001 by the Abu Sayyaf, two hostages, who were foreign national employees of the resort, were beheaded on Basilan Island.
Sali’s group along with 17 of the hostages then proceeded to Jose Torres Memorial Hospital in Lamitan town in Basilan island where they seized and detained additional hostages. Later in June 2001, the Abu Sayyaf beheaded Sobero.
In January 2002, Sali made statements during a radio interview denouncing the arrival of U.S. military advisors in the Philippines to participate in joint military exercises with the Armed Forces of the Philippines designed to locate and combat the Abu Sayyaf and rescue the hostages.
Sali held several senior positions of influence within the Abu Sayyaf. In February 2002, the U.S. indicted Sali and four other Abu Sayyaf leaders.
Three years later, Sali accompanied Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and another senior leader Isnilon Hapilon to a meeting in the southern Philippines with senior leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization operating in Southeast Asia. The JI leaders included Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who were both suspected of playing a role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 mostly foreigners.
The Abu Sayyaf group got its name from "Abu Sayyaf," meaning "Father of the Sword" or "Bearer of the Sword" in Arabic. The group is also known as Al-Harakat Al-Islamiyah, meaning "the Islamic Movement."
Since 1997, the Abu Sayyaf has been designated by the State Department as a "foreign terrorist organization." The group's written charter states, among other things that the purpose of the group is either to establish an Islamic government in the southern Philippines or to "reach Martyrdom in Allah 's way" and that the group considers jihad (holy war) "as the only method and alternative to stop and root out aggression, tyranny, injustice, and oppression." (Mindanao Examiner)
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