Parad's killing cripples Abu Sayyaf

MANILA, Philippines - A young, brash militant who gained notoriety after posing for cameras with three Red Cross hostages became the latest casualty of US-backed military assaults that have slowly eliminated the country’s most wanted terrorist suspects.

Albader Parad is best remembered as the head of a faction of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group who demanded a ransom last year for the release of three officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who were freed after months in jungle captivity despite threats to behead them.

A special operations platoon on Sunday crawled within 30 meters of a forest hut on southern Jolo Island and opened fire after receiving intelligence reports that Parad and senior leader Umbra Jumdail were meeting, military officials said.

At the end of the hour-long gunfight, Parad and five other militants, including Jumdail’s brother, lay dead. Four civilians later identified Parad’s body, according to Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) chief Lt. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino.

A Marine also was killed in the encounter.

“This will be a big blow to the Abu Sayyaf,” Dolorfino said Monday. “He was the most visible among the leaders. The fear of the people for the Abu Sayyaf is represented by the face of Albader, which always comes out in newspapers.”

The Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for the country’s worst bomb attacks and kidnapping sprees where some of its hostages were beheaded during the last two decades.

The Abu Sayyaf, which means “Bearer of the Sword” in Arabic, was founded in 1991 in Basilan province with suspected funds from Asian and Middle Eastern radical groups, including al-Qaeda. It came to US attention in 2001, when it kidnapped three Americans, two of whom were later killed, and dozens of Filipinos.

The violence prompted Washington to deploy hundreds of troops to train Philippine forces and share intelligence, driving military operations that have neutralized the most prominent leaders one by one.

Out of the 24 original leaders and militants, about half a dozen remain at large. The rest are either dead or in jail. Abu Sayyaf’s oldest, ailing commander, one-armed Radulan Sahiron, has not been seen since a 2008 clash.

Only two other influential leaders remain - Jumdail, an ideologue also known as Dr. Abu Pula, and Isnilon Hapilon, who carries a US reward of $5 million for his capture.

However, Hapilon might have suffered a stroke, Dolorfino said.

“There are no young leaders emerging,” Dolorfino said.

Parad, who appeared to be in his 20s, began as an errand boy in militant jungle camps and in 2000 took part in a mass kidnapping from the Sipadan resort in nearby Malaysia that netted 10 Europeans and 11 other people, according to a military dossier.

He was described as coming from a poor family where most relatives had links to the Abu Sayyaf. He had reportedly amassed more than $400,000 from a string of earlier abductions, some of which was invested by relatives in passenger transport and coconut farmlands.

Meantime, two civilian informants actually led the Marine special operations forces to Bader’s lair, according to Dolorfino.

He said the two assets have been working under the intelligence project to get Parad.

“They have been providing information on the location of Parad and one of them was with the combined special operation units that attacked his forces,” Dolorfino said after awarding medals to three wounded soldiers who joined the operation. – Jaime Laude, Rose Tamayo-Tesoro, Evelyn Macairan, AP