A suspected member of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) died on Thursday night after he was shot during pursuit operations by arresting authorities in Marawi City, the Philippine Army’s First Division said in a statement on Friday.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) challenged those claiming that the two foreign terrorists killed by a military airstrike were still alive to show proof of life.
The military did not use “smart bomb” technology in the February 2 air strike in Parang, Sulu, that supposedly killed Malaysian terror suspect Zulkifli Bin Hir and several others, including Abu Sayyaf leader Gumbahali Jumdail.
Abu Sayyaf commander Umbra Jumdail had deviated from the brutal image of his al-Qaida-linked militant group by playing doctor to poor Filipino villagers, whose backing he needed to stay safe from military troops. But those villagers may have been used by the military to finally track him down last week.
Police investigators went home empty-handed Saturday after religious and local leaders in the municipality of Parang in Sulu refused to show them the graves of alleged local and foreign terrorists the military claimed to have been killed in air strikes last Thursday.
Are they or aren’t they dead? Even as the military has stepped up security in anticipation of retaliatory attacks by the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebel groups after an air strike on a remote terrorist camp in Sulu killed 15 al-Qaida-linked extremists on Thursday, authorities are considering exhuming some bodies to prove the identities of the dead terrorist leaders.
Police scene-of-the-crime operatives have taken samples of human remains on ground zero of bombs dropped by government warplanes in Sulu to confirm the deaths of three top terror leaders belonging to the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah and up to 12 of their followers.
The head of Bantay Ceasefire in Sulu said Friday that some civilians and a Bangladeshi national identified only as Mastal were among those killed by military air strikes in the municipality of Parang in Sulu. Professor Octavio Dinampo, who also works at the Mindanao State University there, said the information was relayed to him by an in-law of Abu Sayyaf leader Gumbahali Jumdail alias Doc Abu.
A look at major attacks in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia attributed to the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and their allies from the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah.
Using 227-kilogram bombs in an air attack that lasted only “a few seconds,” government warplanes on Thursday killed one of Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorist leaders, as well as a senior Abu Sayyaf commander and a Singaporean guerrilla.
Three of the biggest suspected terrorists in the Philippines were slain in pre-dawn air strikes in Sulu on Thursday, including a top leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah network who carried a $5 million bounty on his head, and the elusive commander of the Abu Sayyaf Group.
At least 15 Islamic extremists, including three senior leaders, were killed in an air raid in Parang town in Sulu at dawn Thursday.
The Court of Appeals has affirmed the guilty verdict handed down by a Manila court against three alleged members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah responsible for the Dec. 30, 2000 bombing of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) that killed 11 people and injured 19 others.
