Western Mindanao military chief Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo inspects seized Abu Sayyaf bomb materials and munitions in Jolo island on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2006. And the body of slain Abu Sayyaf leader, Jainal Antel Sali, Jr. alias Abu Solaiman. A Philippine Air Force helicopter gunner aims his machine gun over Bud Dajo in Jolo's Talipao town, where Solaiman was killed in fierce firefight with troops. (Mindanao Examiner Photos) JOLO ISLAND (Mindanao Examiner / 17 Jan) – The Philippine military on Wednesday sent more troops to the troubled southern island of Jolo and vowed to crush the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda terror network and the Jemaah Islamiya.
A Philippine Air Force C130 cargo plane transported soldiers and weapons from Manila to help the hundreds of troops already in Jolo to fight the Abu Sayyaf.
The offensive began in August last year when the military launched a series of campaigns aimed at capturing or killing terror leaders, including two Jemaah Islamiya militants Dulmatin and Umar Patek, blamed for the spate of bombings and attacks on civilian and government targets.
Soldiers drove in a convoy of trucks and armored vehicles and unloaded munitions and rockets and caches of other armaments inside an army base in Jolo town, where a contingent of U.S. troops are stationed and helping the Philippine military defeat terrorism on the island.
The arrival of the troops came ahead of a planned visit in Jolo of U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. A highly placed government source said Rice, who had earlier served as National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush, would visit the island to inspect American troops before the start of new joint RP-US anti-terror exercises next month.
On Tuesday, Filipino troops, guided by U.S. military intelligence, raided an Abu Sayyaf hideout on Bud Dajo (also called Mount Daho) in Jolo’s Talipao town and killed a senior militant leader, Jainal Antel Sali, Jr. alias Abu Solaiman. A regional Filipino army spokesman, Maj. Eugene Batara said the death of Sali was big blow to the Abu Sayyaf.
Bud Dajo, an active volcano on the island, has a treacherous terrain, dangerous crevices and covered with thick canopy of trees, making it extremely difficult for air surveillance to track down the enemies.
“Let this be a warning to terrorists that there is no escape and we will get you, sooner or later. The Abu Sayyaf should surrender peacefully,” said Army Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, the chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command.
Cedo was in Jolo on Wednesday and inspected the body of Sali, the spokesman of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf group, believed to have masterminded many bombings in the southern Philippines.
A UH-1H Huey helicopter later flew Cedo and his commanders over Bud Dajo, where troops were tracking down about 60 Abu Sayyaf militants, who escaped Tuesday’s fighting.
Sali was buried Wednesday in Jolo after relatives and friends positively identified the body. A bullet fired by a soldier tore a hole on Sali’s chest. A piece of wood, about an inch long, embedded on his left cheek, was pulled out by two imams hired by the military to clean and bury the corpse in accordance with the Islamic tradition.
“It was him, alright. It was Abu Solaiman. His time finally has come and it’s the end of the road for Solaiman,” Karim Muktar, a former Muslim rebel-turned-government soldier, told the Mindanao Examiner.
But even after his death, some soldiers cursed Sali. “His soul is already in hell. Abu Solaiman was so notorious that many innocent people – men, women and children – died because of him,” one soldier, who gave his name only as William, said.
Sali was included in the U.S. list of most wanted Abu Sayyaf terror leaders 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. and Filipino soldiers after a firefight in Zamboanga del Norte province.
Sali, 41, was also linked to the kidnapping of U.S. citizen, Jeffrey Craig Schilling, in 2000 when he visited Jolo island with his Filipino girlfriend.
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. Schilling eventually managed to escape from captivity on April 12, 2001.
A U.S. government dossier on Sali, a native of Basilan island, 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 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)
No comments:
Post a Comment