JOLO ISLAND (Mindanao Examiner / 23 Aug) The Abu Sayyaf killed one government soldier in fierce fighting Wednesday in Patikul town in Jolo island, where security forces are battling militants, blamed for the string of bombings and kidnappings in the southern Philippines, officials said.
“One soldier was killed in the fighting. The fighting is intense in Patikul town,” Lt. Col. Susthenes Valcorza, a spokesman for the military’s Southern Command, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said the fighting broke out in Danag village where government forces earlier clashed with Abu Sayyaf that left one militant dead and four soldiers injured.
Troops were pursuing Khadaffy Janjalani, chieftain of the Abu Sayyaf and two Jemaah Islamiya bombers Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who were reported hiding in Jolo.
The Philippine military tightened security in Jolo after troops last week seized 6,000 blasting caps and ten sacks of ammonium nitrate used by the Abu Sayyaf group to manufacture improvised explosives.
The military said a man, Mujahiri Malik, who was allegedly transporting the explosives, was arrested, but his companion, a woman, had escaped and is being hunted by security forces.
Washington has offered as much as $10 million bounty for Dulmatin and $1 million for Patek's capture and another $5 million for known Abu Sayyaf leaders, including Khadaffy Janjalani, its chieftain. President Gloria Arroyo also put up P100 million rewards for the capture of the group's leaders and their members dead or alive.
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