JOLO ISLAND, 26 February 2005 — Government troops have captured a mountain base of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in the southern island of Jolo after a gunbattle in which a dozen militants were killed, officials said yesterday.

More troops were sent yesterday to the hinterlands of Indanan town, where security forces are battling about a hundred gunmen under Abu Sayyaf leader Umbra Jumdail, implicated by the military in the kidnapping of 21 mostly Asian and European holiday-makers on the Malaysian resort island of Sipadan in 2000.

“At least ten Abu Sayyaf terrorists were killed and none on our side. The offensive is still going on,” the chief of military forces in the southern Philippines, Lt. Gen. Alberto Braganza, told Arab News.

Braganza inspected the Abu Sayyaf base called Camp Karawan, deep in the jungle of Indanan, and spoke to troops who have been hunting the insurgents since the past week.

“We will be victorious and we will get ‘em one by one. The operation against the terrorists will be without letup,” he said.

Jolo military chief Brig. Gen. Agustin Dema-ala said his group captured the Abu Sayyaf base on Thursday after three hours of fierce fighting that began before sunrise.

“Camp Karawan was the symbol of power and atrocities of the Abu Sayyaf group. It is now a symbol of peace,” Dema-ala said.

About 100 Abu Sayyaf defenders broke up into small groups as troops, backed by helicopter gunships firing rockets, assaulted the camp on top of the Budkaha mountain, about 940 kilometers (580 miles) south of Manila, Dema-ala said.

He also said there were no government casualties. Civilians fleeing the fighting reported seeing some wounded gunmen.

Dema-ala said the sprawling Abu Sayyaf camp that extends several kilometers in Mt. Karawan was covered with thick forest canopy and was only discovered after civilians tipped off the military about its location.

Treetops cover the mountain hideout from the air. The camp, which could accommodate as many as 1,000 people, is also used for guerrilla training and includes a network of foxholes, trenches and bunkers, Dema-ala said. A sign written on the camp’s entrance said: “Gun is my wife, bullet is my life, war is my game, and death is my end.”

The capture of the base “shows the will of the government to assert itself in imposing the laws of the law and the determination of the government to go after violators of the law,” Dema-ala said.

The camp is also a sanctuary for local Abu Sayyaf commander Albader Parad, whose gunmen killed three soldiers on security patrol in Indanan on Feb. 19.

Following a major offensive, the military last week also captured the main camp of followers of Nur Misuari, the jailed former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front, the erstwhile mainstream rebel group that accepted limited autonomy and signed a peace accord with the government in 1996.

Gunbattles flared on Feb. 7 when followers of Misuari attacked government troops in Jolo’s Panamao town, provoking a major military offensive that left more than 70 people dead, including 30 soldiers.

On Tuesday, Misuari told a group of lawmakers that he had no role in the clashes, calling them retaliatory attacks for alleged army abuses and anti-insurgency operations that left innocent civilians dead.

The military claims pro-Misuari rebels were in alliance with the Abu Sayyaf, but Misuari has denied the link.

Potential Bomb

Security forces have been on heightened alert nationwide following the Feb. 14 bombings in Manila’s financial district of Makati and the southern port cities of Davao and General Santos. Eight people were killed and more than 120 wounded in the almost simultaneous blasts.

Police yesterday also found a potential bomb in Manila’s suburban Taguig town after jittery residents reported finding an abandoned backpack inside a billiard hall before dawn.

A police bomb squad recovered two kilograms of TNT, 10-15 kilograms of gunpowder and blasting caps inside a backpack at the billiard hall, said metropolitan Manila police chief Avelino Razon. He said the explosives were not yet assembled into a bomb but there would have been a very powerful blast had the gunpowder been ignited from a stray cigarette in the hall.

Razon said residents reported the suspicious bag to police.

Abu Khalil Trinidad, one of two men arrested in the Feb. 14 bus bombing in Manila’s financial district that killed four, tearfully admitted responsibility in a television interview Thursday.

Also on Thursday, police disclosed they had thwarted planned attacks on an airport, malls, a church and US troops with the arrests of three members of the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah in December.

The two Indonesians and a Malaysian were arrested in southern Zamboanga city along with a Filipino member of the Abu Sayyaf with bomb-making manuals, bomb parts and funds to be used for attacks, officials said.

The men allegedly belonged to a previously unknown Jemaah Islamiyahh terror cell in the country. The arrests were not immediately announced to allow authorities to identify six other suspects, one of whom has been arrested, said police Chief Supt. Ismael Rafanan. (Additional input from agencies)