Manila troops battle rebels after air raids Saturday, 04 February 2012 00:36

Manila: Philippine troops battled Islamist extremists on a remote southern island yesterday where a day earlier three of Southeast Asia’s top terror suspects were killed in a US-backed air strike, the army said.

Soldiers who approached the bombed area on the outskirts of a small village on Jolo island after the raid faced dogged resistance from surviving militants, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.

“There is intermittent fire, the area is not yet secured,” Cabangbang told GMA television in a telephone interview.

The troops had moved into the scene of the strike in an effort to retrieve the bodies of the three senior militants who were killed, as well as to take on the others who survived Thursday’s aerial assault.

The military said 15 members of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) organisations were killed in the air raid, which followed months of surveillance on the sparsely populated and isolated hinterland of Jolo.

The Philippine military said yesterday it had not been able to obtain proof that it killed three of Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terror suspects, but insisted the trio had died in a US-backed airstrike.

Troops were sent to the isolated jungle area where Thursday’s bombing took place on the remote southern island of Jolo, but they found no bodies, armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Arnulfo Burgos told reporters in Manila.

Burgos said the three senior leaders from the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) networks, as well as 12 slain junior figures, had been taken away by fellow militants and quickly buried as per Muslim custom.

“After the airstrike, the bodies were taken immediately,” Burgos said.

However he said the military was certain the top trio had been killed, based on intelligence “assets”.

“Yes, its an A-1 (information). We have something but we cannot divulge all the other information because its an operational (secret),” he said.

The highest-profile militant reported slain was Malaysian Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, alias Marwan, one of the United States’ most-wanted terror suspects with a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government.

Zulkifli was one of JI’s top leaders and a bomb-making expert who had been hiding out in the southern Philippines since 2003, according to the US State Department.

Also reported killed was Singaporean Mohammad Ali, alias Muawiyah, another JI leader who had been hiding in the Philippines since the group killed 202 people in a series of bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002.

The third senior militant reported killed was Filipino Abu Pula, also known as Doctor Abu or Umbra Jumdail, one of the core leaders of the Abu Sayyaf that is blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines.

There was particular focus yesterday on whether Philippine authorities could provide proof that the high-value trio had been slain because of previous incorrect claims of killing senior militants.

AFP

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