MANILA, 6 August 2006 — Government troops hunting suspected Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines have overrun their jungle camp but the rebels escaped, the military said yesterday.
The camp, near the town of Indanan on the southern island of Jolo, was believed to have been used for training in bomb-making by members of Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
“The explosive-making facility overrun by the ground troops is said to be the place where the JI militants teach the Abu Sayyaf members how to build and create improvised explosive devices,” Brig. Gen. Alexander Aleo, the military commander in Jolo, said in a statement.
The military said the camp, in the foothills of Mount Bud Kapok, contained fortified bunkers and ground shelters.
Filipino soldiers, backed by US intelligence and equipment, have reported killing 12 Abu Sayyaf members since fighting in Jolo began on Tuesday, army Maj. Mabini Abduhadi told a news conference in Zamboanga City in southern Philippines.
He said the bodies of five of the dead had been recovered.
On Friday, Aleo said six Abu Sayyaf members were wounded, seven captured in ground and air assaults on Jolo since Tuesday, with seven soldiers wounded. Hundreds of villagers have fled the fighting.
Philippine security forces are trying to stop Abu Sayyaf and members of Jemaah Islamiyah, Al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate, from using the southern islands as bases to train and plot attacks in Southeast Asia.
Abu Sayyaf, the smallest of four Muslim rebel groups in the country with about 400 members, is blamed for kidnappings and bombings, including a blast on a ferry near Manila in February 2004 that killed more than 100 people.
The soldiers are trying to capture or kill Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani and Indonesians Umar Patek and Dulmatin, the principal suspects in the October 2002 bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
Despite numerous offensives on Jolo, including one with 5,000 troops in 2004, Abu Sayyaf leaders and their foreign colleagues have eluded capture.
Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines have been seeking greater independence since the 1960s in a conflict that has cost more than 120,000 lives and stunted development.
Promote Peace, Not War
In Manila, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. dared military authorities to justify their offensive in Sulu by presenting credible proof that JI operatives from Indonesia are operating there,
At the same time, he cautioned anew the American military not to get involved in combat operations against the Abu Sayyaf and other terrorist groups on Mindanao.
“My view has always been that the US is welcome to this country to help promote peace, not to wage war. And therefore I do not approve of any military action on the part of the US in any part of the country because we are supposed to be a sovereign nation,” he said.
Contrary to the claim of a military official that Indonesian terrorists Omar Patek and Dulmatin are moving in the company of Abu Sayyaf bandits in Sulu, Pimentel said his own sources tell him there are no JI agents in Mindanao.
“My point is if there is JI cell there, (military authorities) should come out openly and tell us who, what, and where they are so thing will clear up...I am apprehensive there may be some ploy behind the alleged presence of the JI to widen the war and lay the basis for the continued warfare in Mindanao. And I think if the US authorities say there are JI from Indonesia, they should produce evidence for that,” he said.
Pimentel said the alleged presence of JI operatives in the island-province may just be a ploy to justify “continued warfare in Mindanao.”
“It is their job to show the people there is basis for their saying there is a Jemaah Islamiyah cell in Sulu. In the absence of that, they cannot expect us to support the ongoing hostilities in Sulu,” he said.
Some 500 families have fled their homes in Indanan, Sulu as the government troops carry out operations against terrorists using artillery.
This military action occurred, Pimentel pointed out, despite the statement of Ustadz Habier Malik, a high-ranking leader of the Moro National Liberation Front's (MNLF) faction of Nur Misuari, claiming that the clash was between government soldiers and MNLF fighters, with no Abu Sayyaf guerrillas involved.
“I am concerned about hostilities in Sulu that it has displaced so many unarmed citizens, non-combatants, from their homes and farms because that makes for instability in that part of the country,” Pimentel said. (With input from Inquirer News Service & Reuters)
