Mindanao bandit leader reported dead

ZAMBOANGA City, Philippines—Waning Abdusalam, a notorious bandit leader in Western Mindanao, blamed for many kidnappings in the region has died, a police official said Thursday.

But Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, head of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao, said he would announce the full details of Abdusalam’s death later in the day.

Abdusalam’s group was the object of a massive manhunt in Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay, last month but he eluded a combined police and military operation that included bomb runs and ground assaults.