Civilian Informers Get Sayyaf Bounties In Philippines

Philippine Army commander Major General Eugenio Cedo and deputy Marine Brigadier General Juancho Sabban reward Friday, June 22, 2007 P6.6 million to four civilian informers who help troops tracked down six Abu Sayyaf militants. And Major Eugene Batara, a regional army spokesmam, also shows posters of slain Abu Sayyaf hitmen Anni Sailani alias Omar and his brother iting, who are killed in clash in Basilan island. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 22 Jun) – The Philippine military on Friday rewarded four civilian informers who helped troops tracked down six Abu Sayyaf militants and eventually killed all of them in separate clashes in the troubled South.

Army commander Major General Eugenio Cedo and his deputy Marine Brigadier General Juancho Sabban, handed P6.6 million to the four masked informers inside the Western Mindanao Command headquarters in Zamboanga City.

The four did not speak to reporters, but Cedo said they were instrumental in the killing of six, one of them a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf, Jainal Antel Salih alias Abu Solaiman, who was also in terror list of the United States.

The five other Abu Sayyaf militants – Tajajul Ampul, Abdasir Dima, Binang Sali, Ismin Sahiton and Jumdam Jamalul – were implicated in the spate of killings and terrorism in the southern Philippines. They were all killed this year.

“These people who helped us neutralized the terrorists are considered heroes. We urge citizens to help us fight terrorism by providing information to authorities about the likes of the Abu Sayyaf,” Cedo said. (Mindanao Examiner)

Top U.S. Officials Visit Jolo Island In Southern Philippines

Aerial view of Jolo island in the Sulu Archipelago in southern Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner Photo/Ely Dumaboc)

JOLO ISLAND (Mindanao Examiner / 27 Mar) – U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney visited the strife-torn island of Jolo in southern Philippines and inaugurated a cooperative store previously bombed by the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.

Kenney, accompanied by senior US and Philippine military officials, also handed various office equipment and livelihood programs to the locals, said Major Eugene Batara, a spokesman for the Philippine military’s Western Mindanao Command.

“The visit of U.S. Ambassador Kenney is successful and there are so many people who welcomed and greeted her. They are happy about the visit. She handed various office equipment and unveiled a livelihood programs for the locals,” Batara told the Mindanao Examiner.

Major General Eugenio Cedo, Western Mindanao Command chief, also accompanied Kenney and her group, which included the Italian philanthropist Armando de Rossi, of the 3P Foundation.

"We have donated some P2.5 million for the building materials and the Philippine Marines and the Seabees helped us renovate the cooperative store building. We are happy to help the Filipino people," said De Rossi.

De Rossi and Kenney are actively involved in many humanitarian programs in Jolo island, where troops, backed by U.S. intelligence, are battling the Abu Sayyaf.

The militant group has been blamed for the bombing last year of the Sulu cooperative store that killed and wounded dozens of mostly Muslims.

Last week, troops also clashed with Abu Sayyaf militants in Jolo’s Mount Mabigtang, but there were no reports of casualties from both sides.

Washington tagged the Abu Sayyaf as a foreign terrorist organization and offered as much as five million dollars for its known leaders.

U.S. troops are deployed in Jolo and helping the Filipino soldiers defeat the Abu Sayyaf, which is coddling as many as two dozen Jemaah Islamiya militants, including Dulmatin and Umar Patek.

Both Dulmatin and Patek have been blamed in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 mostly foreign holiday-makers, including 88 Australians. (With a report from Ely Dumaboc)

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)