JOLO ISLAND (Mindanao Examiner / 06 Jan) – Philippine security forces killed at least 7 members of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in fierce sea battle on Saturday off the southern island of Tawi-Tawi near the Malaysian border, officials said.
Officials said the soldiers attacked an Abu Sayyaf speedboat after it tried to escape from a sea blockade near Panglima Sugala town at around 4.45 a.m. The boat’s passengers traded automatic gunfire with soldiers until they were all killed.
The fighting broke out just two days before President Gloria Arroyo is to hold a military conference in Jolo island near Tawi-Tawi.
The exact number of the passengers was unknown, but a Filipino military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said soldiers recovered at least 7 bodies and several high-powered firearms, including an M-203 automatic rifle.
“Joint AFP units encountered ASG elements onboard a speedboat and after a 30 minutes firefight at sea, the group of Abu Hubaida and Black Killer was completely neutralized. The result, seven enemies are killed, all body counts, and the double-engine boat and weapons have been recovered,” he told the Mindanao Examiner by phone.
It was not immediately known where the Abu Sayyaf militants were headed to or if they were planning an escape to nearby Sabah in Malaysia or return to Jolo island, where troops are battling hunting other members of the terrorist group.
Black Killer was an alias used by an Abu Sayyaf sub-leader, Jundam Hadjirul, who escaped from jail on Basilan island in April 2004 along with 52 prisoners, including 18 militants.
Little was known about Abu Hubaida, but the Abu Sayyaf is included in the US terror list and Washington offered as much as five million dollars bounty for the capture of its leader Khadaffy Janjalani and his lieutenants.
Western Mindanao military chief Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo ordered security forces Saturday to track down other Abu Sayyaf members and intensify their offensive.
The Philippine military last month announced that soldiers dug up the alleged body of Janjalani, who was killed in a firefight in September in Jolo island’s Patikul town. He took over command of the Abu Sayyaf when his brother, Abubakar Abdurajak Janjalani, who founded the group, was killed in a firefight with policemen in 1998 in Basilan Island.
Government soldiers were still hunting other senior Abu Sayyaf leaders and nearly a dozen Jemaah Islamiyah militants, including Umar Patek and Dulmatin. Both were believed with the Abu Sayyaf group in Jolo island, about 950 kms south of Manila.
The two men Patek and Dulmatin are wanted for the October 2002 bombings in the resort Indonesian island of Bali in which 202 mostly foreign tourists were killed. (Mindanao Examiner)
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