General Visits Troops Wounded In Sayyaf Fighting

Philippine Army Major General Eugenio Cedo, center, speaks with soldiers who were wounded while fighting al-Qaida militants linked to Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya militants in the southern island of Jolo, during his visit to a military hospital Friday Oct. 13, 2006, in Zamboanga, southern Philippines. Two Philippine army soldiers were killed in a gunbattle Wednesday as they pressed a continuing offensive against militants, on southern Jolo island, believed to be the hideout of Indonesian terrorists Dumatin and Umar Patek, with the military vowing not to be distracted by apparent rebel diversionary bomb attacks. (Mindanao Examiner)

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 13 Oct) – Philippine Army Major General Eugenio Cedo on Friday visited soldiers wounded in clashes with the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Jolo island.

Cedo, clad in camouflage uniform and accompanied by senior army officials, spoke to each of eight army scout ranger soldiers at a military hospital in Zamboanga City. He also gave them P5,000 each.

“Don’t worry, our soldiers are pursuing the terrorists who are responsible to all these. And we will get one by one until they are all eliminated,” Cedo told the soldiers.

The soldiers were wounded in Wednesday fighting in Jolo’s Patikul town where two infantrymen also died.

Cedo said troops were pursuing the chieftain of the Abu Sayyaf, Khadaffy Janjalani; and two senior Jemaah Islamiya leaders, Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both wanted in the bombings of two night clubs in the resort island of Bali in 2002 and the JW Marriot hotel in 2003 in Jakarta that killed more than 200 people.

The Jemaah Islamiya is also believed as behind the 2004 bombing of a Filipino ferry off Manila Bay that killed 116 people-the second-worst terrorist attack in Southeast Asia after the 2002 Bali bombs.

The group was largely blamed by Philippine authorities in a series of bombings in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 and wounded more than 100 people. One of the bombs exploded at an open square less than a hundred meters from the U.S. Embassy.

The U.S. has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Dulmatin, an electronics specialist with training in al-Qa'eda camps in Afghanistan.

Dulmatin fled to Mindanao in the southern Philippines soon after the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel. There, he is one of four top JI leaders—including Umar Patek, Zulkifli bin Hir and Abdul Rahman Ayub—who trained members of JI and the Abu Sayyaf group in MILF camps in southern Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)