By Hader Glang & Roy Ramos
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Three members of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group have been killed in operations by Philippine troops on Abu Sayyaf encampments in southern Basilan province, the military said Wednesday.
Col. Rolando Bautista, 104th Brigade commander, told local media that six other guerillas were wounded after troops under his command clashed with some 50 Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Sumisip town Tuesday.
“Identities of enemy casualties are being verified at the moment. Troops, on the other hand, did not suffer any casualties," he said in a statement.
Bautista explained that military offensives across Sumisip, which involved aerial support, led to hours-long firefights and the withdrawal of Abu Sayyaf members.
Sally Christine Magno, 104th Brigade officer, said in a report that military troops had captured two abandoned encampments in Sumisip – a hotbed of Abu Sayyaf militancy.
"The discovered encampments can accommodate more or less 100 persons,” Magno said. “An improvised explosive device was recovered in one of the encampments."
According to the military, the guerillas involved in Tuesday’s clashes were under the command of Abu Sayyaf leaders Radzmil Janatul and Juhaivel Alamsirul, who are held responsible for an attack that killed six troopers late last year.
In November, the Abu Sayyaf ambushed soldiers securing a Saudi-funded circumferential road project, which runs around 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles) and is designed to link nearly half of Basilan’s main highways.
The military then deployed up to 2,500 additional troops to the province after the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s governor, Mujiv Hataman, called for "all-out law enforcement operations" against the group.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a struggle for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.
