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Thursday, October 13, 2005
3 killed, Army officer hurt in Sayyaf attack
By Al Jacinto
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants killed two soldiers and a civilian in an ambush Wednesday in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, officials said.
Two soldiers, including Army unit commander Lt. Rajik Misuari, were also wounded in the attack around 10 a.m. in the hinterland village of Pamatsakin in Sumisip town, the island's military chief Brigadier General Raymundo Ferrer said.
Ferrer said the militants, led by Amir Mingkong, attacked the soldiers who were patrolling the village, triggering a firefight that lasted more than one hour.
"One civilian was also killed when the militants opened fire on the soldiers," he said by phone from a command post in the town.
He said the soldiers fought the militants until the gunmen retreated. "Villagers said they saw the gunmen dragging at least three bodies," he said.
"We are pursuing the Abu Sayyaf in the hinterlands and I have alerted other Army units in the area," the general said.
The attack occurred at the time security forces mounted fresh operation in the southern Philippines to track down a pair of senior Jemaah Islamiya bomb-makers--Pitono, also known as Dulmatin, and Umar Patek--tagged as behind the 2002 twin bombings on the Indonesian resort island that killed more than 200 mostly foreign tourists.
The United States has offered up to 10 million dollars for the capture of Dulmatin and 1 million dollars bounty for Patek's head.
Both Dulmatin and Umar Patek are believed to be in the company of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani, who's the target of a US-backed military manhunt in the south. The US and Philippine governments said the Abu Sayyaf is tied to the al-Qaeda terror network.
The Jemaah Islamiya is also believed to have formed links with the Abu Sayyaf up to five years ago. Abu Sayyaf rebels once claimed to have fought for an Islamic state in the southern Philippines, but won infamy around the world for the repeated kidnapping and killing of tourists and locals.
Dulmatin, a 32-year-old Malaysian electronics expert, evaded a massive police hunt in Indonesia.
Indonesian police said Dulmatin was believed to have worked alongside another Malaysian, Dr. Azahari Husin, to assemble the massive car bomb and the explosives vest used by a suicide bomber who attacked the Paddy's Bar in Bali.
Police say he triggered the Sari bomb using his cell phone. Umar Patek, on the other hand, was one of three men who mixed the explosives used in the Bali bombings.
Dulmatin, Afghanistan-trained and one of the few Jemaah Islamiya militants able to assemble and explode large chlorate and nitrate bombs, was also said to be raising funds for terror campaign in the Philippines and Indonesia.
He was also implicated by Filipino authorities in the 2003 bombing of the Davao International Airport and Sasa wharf in Mindanao.
Three of his local Abu Sayyaf contacts--Pedro Guiamat, Ali Salipada and Norodin Mangalen--were arrested in June in Maguindanao province.
A bomb hidden in a backpack exploded in March 2003 at the Davao airport terminal, killing 19 people, including US missionary William Hyde, and wounding more than 145 people.
A second bomb explosion also ripped through a passenger terminal in Sasa wharf in Davao City that killed and wounded dozens of people.
The Abu Sayyaf detonated two powerful bombs in Zamboanga City's business district in July, wounding 26 people, and also bombed a ferry last month in Basilan island, killing three.
The United States listed the Abu Sayyaf as a foreign terrorist organization and froze it assets abroad.
Washington also offered as much as $5 million bounty for the capture of known Abu Sayyaf leaders, including Janjalani, for the killing of two kidnapped US citizens in 2002 in the southern Philippines. (Sun.Star Zamboanga/Sunnex)
(October 13, 2005 issue)
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