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Saturday, April 05, 2003
After gunfight, cops find only 1 dead Sayyaf
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Soldiers and policemen shot and killed a man suspected to be an Abu Sayyaf leader in a shootout that ended near midnight Thursday at a housing subdivision less than a kilometer away from the military's Southern Command headquarters in this city.
When the gun battle ended and the fire that razed a house in a subdivision that a composite police-military team tried to storm died down, authorities can only account for one suspected Abu Sayyaf member.
The Abu Sayyaf guerilla, identified as Abdulraup Jalmaani, was already dead when police and soldiers entered his home where he holed up and kept the security officers at bay for several hours Thursday night.
Authorities entered the compound on Friday morning and found three guns of various calibers among the charred wood and beams of the house.
They also recovered at least three other guns inside the house of the suspect that was built like a fortress and which is barely a kilometer away from the Southern Command headquarters.
The group, who was supposed to serve a warrant of arrest on Jalmaani, found it hard to storm the house on Thursday, as it was built like a concrete bunker.
It was windowless, with thick walls reaching up to 13 feet and topped with galvanized steel roofs. The door of the house was also made of grill and steel plates.
Earlier reports said there were at least 10 men inside the house with Jalmaani during the standoff with police and military authorities.
But security officers found no remains of the "companions" of Jalmaani, prompting some to speculate that they must have "escaped from the cordon" in the chaos that followed the burning of the house.
Witnesses claimed they saw a man climbing up the wall to escape only to fall down in the raging fire at the height of the sporadic gunfire that lasted until late Thursday evening.
The military deployed its armored personnel carrier (APC) to the scene of the gun battle as reinforcement.
Wounded in the shootout were Col. Alexander Yapching of the military and Inspector James Tovilla and PO2 Tony Cabrera of the PNP's Regional Mobile Group. All three suffered superficial wounds.
Reports said policemen and soldiers went to the house of Jalmaani in Barangay San Roque barangay at around 3 p.m. Thursday.
They were met by gunfire when they tried to enter compound where Jalmaani's house was located.
Yapching, Tovilla and Cabrera were hit in the initial shootout.
Police called in reinforcements when they noticed that Jalmaani had no plans of giving himself up.
The intermittent shooting lasted until 11 p.m. while the house smoldering in the background.
Shortly after midnight, the soldiers and policemen drove civilians away from the scene, saying they have to search the area for unexploded bombs or grenades. Sun.Star Zamboanga |
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