Sayyaf leader slain while eluding arrest

Army rangers killed an alleged senior commander of the Abu Sayyaf Islamist group on an islet off Basilan island when he resisted arrest and tried to shoot it out, the military reported yesterday.

Salip Asman Halipa was killed late Tuesday on the islet of Malamawi, not far from Isabela town, Basilan’s capital, Lt. Col. Renato Padua, commander of the First Scout Ranger Battalion, said.

"The fall of this leader is very significant because the subject is one of Abu Sayyaf’s recruiters," Padua said, adding that Asman carried a P1-million bounty on his head. Halipa’s body was turned over to the police.

"Based on the dossier, the suspect is one of the leaders of Abu Sabaya and tasked to recruit young members," Padua said.

The raid followed a tip from fishermen that Abu Sayyaf gunmen were in the area, said military Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya.

He said an undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf gunmen were wounded. There were no government casualties and troops were pursuing guerrillas who escaped, he said.

Both Manila and Washington have earlier linked the Abu Sayyaf to the al-Qaeda network of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.

Considered a terrorist group by the US, the group styles itself as a rebel group fighting for an independent Muslim state in Mindanao but its activities are mostly kidnapping-for-ransom.

Last year, about 1,000 US troops held a six-month counter-terrorism exercise with Filipino soldiers to flush out the Islamist rebels from Basilan.

The war games were credited for the killing of Abu Sabaya, a senior Abu Sayyaf leader, and the rescue of an American hostage, Gracia Burnham. Burnham’s husband Martin was killed along with Filipina nurse Edibora Yap during a rescue operation.

Although the exercises broke up the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan, military operations are still ongoing to mop up remnants of the group. Padua said the bandits no longer move in large numbers, making it difficult for troops to locate them.

On the nearby island of Sulu, an Abu Sayyaf faction there — which is holding four Filipina Christian preachers and three Indonesian sailors hostage — has also managed to evade troops.

On Sunday, troops searching for the hostages raided a house believed owned by an Abu Sayyaf sympathizer in Talipao town and seized a cache of weapons. The house was abandoned, said Sulu Army commander Col. Alexander Aleo.

Last year, security was stepped up across the country after a string of bomb attacks in October, mostly in Zamboanga City, which were blamed on Muslim militants, including the Abu Sayyaf.

Several Abu Sayyaf members were arrested for at least three of those attacks, including one on Oct. 2 that killed an American soldier and wounded another in Zamboanga.

Last month, Manila expelled an Iraqi diplomat for alleged links to the deadly Abu Sayyaf bomb attack that killed a US soldier. Philippine intelligence said Husham Hussain, second secretary at the Iraqi embassy in Manila, was in telephone contact with an Abu Sayyaf guerrilla hours after the bombing.