MANILA (AP) - Philippine troops are still pursuing two Indonesian terror suspects on a southern island where a U.S.-backed offensive was launched against al-Qaida-linked militants last year, a military spokesman said Wednesday.
Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both key operatives of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, are still on Jolo island after the discovery of Dulmatin's four children last week on an islet farther south, said Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro.
"We do believe that the high-value targets are still on the island," he said, citing a report by Jolo military commander Brig. Gen. Ruben Rafael.
The military launched a major offensive in August against the two Jemaah Islamiyah commanders and leaders of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group. Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and his successor, Abu Sulaiman, have been killed in separate clashes.
Dulmatin and Patek are suspects in the bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202 people in 2002, and in an attack carried out with the Abu Sayyaf that gutted a ferry on Manila Bay in 2004, killing 116 people.