ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 09 Aug) – Abu Sayyaf militants killed nine government soldiers in an ambush on Thursday in the southern Philippine island of Jolo, where U.S. forces are helping local troops fight terrorism.
The militants, whose group is tied to al-Qaeda, attacked the soldiers while traveling in the village of Maimbung, south of Jolo island. Two soldiers were also injured in the ambush, said Major Eugene Batara, a regional army spokesman.
“Abu Sayyaf terrorists ambushed our soldiers, killing nine of them and wounding two more,” he said, adding, the attackers also carted 6 automatic rifles.
Security forces were pursuing the ambushers on the island, where hundreds of U.S. soldiers who are helping Filipino troops defeat terrorism, are stationed.
Army Lieutenant General Eugenio Cedo ordered soldiers to pursue the Abu Sayyaf on the island, about 950 kilometers south of Manila.
“General Cedo has ordered troops to pursue without let-up the perpetrators of this attack,” the spokesman told the Mindanao Examiner.
The ambush occurred just a day after troops killed at least 4 Abu Sayyaf militants in fierce clashes in Parang town, just east of Maimbung. Troops fought about 70 gunmen under Radullan Sahiron, wanted by the Philippine and U.S. authorities for the spate of kidnappings of foreigners and terrorism in the troubled south.
The Abu Sayyaf originally was fighting for a strict Islamic state, but the group resorted to banditry and terrorism after its chieftain Abubakar Abdurajak Janjalani, a Libyan-trained firebrand, was killed by policemen in Basilan island in 1998.
His younger brother Khadaffy Janjalani, who took over the Abu Sayyaf group, was himself killed in a battle with U.S.-backed Filipino troops in Jolo island in September 2006. Janjalani was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of two Americans in the southern Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)
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