ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 1 February 2008 — An Abu Sayyaf militant accused of killing a Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in a firefight yesterday in the southern province of Tawi-Tawi, officials said.
Another militant was also captured in the village of Buan-buan in Panglima Sugala town, said Maj. Eugene Batara, a spokesman for the military’s Western Mindanao Command.
“Security forces raided an Abu Sayyaf hideout and killed one sub-leader in the firefight. Another terrorist is captured,” Batara said.
Another military spokesman said Dulmatin, one of two Indonesian militants suspected of masterminding the 2002 Bali bombings, happened to be at the village during the raid but he managed to evade arrest. “Our troops were absolutely sure Dulmatin was hiding there,” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro told reporters.
“We were told Dulmatin escaped during the gunfight. The Abu Sayyaf delayed our troops by engaging them in brief battle.”
Batara said civilian informants helped tracked down the militants in Tawi-Tawi, blamed for the Jan. 15 killing of Oblate missionary Jesus Reynaldo Roda in South Ubian town.
Roda was praying at a convent inside the Notre Dame High School in the village of Likud Tabawan when the kidnappers, about 10 of them armed with rifles and handguns, seized the priest and dragged him outside.
Roda was killed after he resisted the kidnapping. The militants then took one teacher hostage, Omar Taup, and were demanding 1-million-peso ransom.
Batara identified the slain Abu Sayyaf sub-leader as Wahab Upao, who was included in the military’s order of battle. There was no report about Taup’s fate. The Abu Sayyaf had killed three Catholic priests since 1997 in southern Philippines.
In 2002, militants kidnapped, tortured and killed Claretian priest Roel Gallardo in Basilan province, several nautical miles south of Zamboanga City.
In 1997, the Abu Sayyaf also assassinated a Catholic bishop Benjamin de Jesus in Jolo town in Sulu province. He was shot several times outside his church in a broad daylight attack. And three years later, the Abu Sayyaf also ambushed a Catholic missionary, Benjamin Inocencio, in Jolo town while buying gifts for poor Muslims.
The Abu Sayyaf also randomly attacked and bombed Catholic churches in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu and in Mindanao the past decade.
