BASILAN ISLAND, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 05, 2007) – Government soldiers killed an Abu Sayyaf militant after storming Monday a hideout of the al-Qaeda-linked group in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, officials said.
Officials said soldiers attacked the hideout on a remote village called Bato-Bato in Akbar town at around 5.30 a.m. sparking a firefight that killed the gunman.
“One terrorist is killed in the raid and troops are still pursuing several more who managed to escape during the fighting,” Major Eugene Batara, a regional army spokesman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said troops recovered an M16 automatic rifle from the slain militant. There were no reports of military casualties, he said.
The Abu Sayyaf, which means “bearer of the sword,” initially was fighting for Muslim homeland after Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, founded the group in the late 1980s.
But the group, mostly made up of former Moro National Liberation front rebels, resorted to banditry and terrorism after Janjalani was killed in a firefight with policemen in Basilan island in 1989.
Washington listed the group as a foreign terrorist organization after the Abu Sayyaf abducted a US citizen, Guillermo Sobero, and beheaded him in 2001. The group was also linked in many kidnappings of foreigners, including three US nationals; one of them was later shot during a rescue operation in Zamboanga del Norte province. (Mindanao Examiner)
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