Abu bandit slain; another captured

A MEMBER of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group was killed in an encounter with government troops in Tawi-Tawi on Friday, while one of the group’s subleaders was arrested in a separate operation in Zamboanga City.

An alias “Said,” who has been tagged in several kidnappings in Mindanao and Sabah, died during a fire fight with joint police and military operatives early yesterday.

Capt. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the spokesperson of Joint Task Force Zambasulta, said the slain Abu Sayyaf was under the group’s subleaders Alhabsy Misaya and Idang Susukan.

He said Said was involved in kidnap-for-ransom groups operating in Tawi-Tawi, Sabah and Malaysia, together with the Muktadil brothers, who are notorious kidnappers in Mindanao.

Said was killed about 10 a.m. yesterday after a fire fight with the Joint Task Group Tawi-Tawi, Joint Task Force Zambasulta, the Tawi-tawi provincial police and the Special Action Force.

The encounter occurred in Barangay Sipangkot, Sitangkai, Tawi-Tawi, as the troops were engaged in an operation to hunt down the Abu Sayyaf.

Trinidad said Said was involved in kidnapping incidents in Sipadan, Sabah; the abduction of a Chinese national in Sampurnah, Sabah; the kidnapping of a mining company officer in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi; and the attempted kidnapping of a Chinese-Filipino store owner in Bongao.

Said has standing arrest warrants for frustrated murder and attempted kidnapping, he said.

Also yesterday, an Abu Sayyaf subleader was arrested in Barangay Tubunga, Zamboanga City.

Mhadie Umangkat Sahirin was walking by a roadside when a joint police and military team on a mission to serve arrest warrants for murder and frustrated murder issued by a Basilan court came upon him about 11.40 a.m. yesterday.

Sahirin was responsible for the ambush of government troops in the Basilan Circumferential Road, as well as a series of car theft, bombings and burning of government construction equipment, he said.