Soldiers, cops step up operations vs Abus

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Major fighting looms in Basilan as combined military and police troops launching an all out law enforcement operations in Basilan for several days now have already cornered a large group of Abu Sayyaf bandits in their jungle lair in the island province, a senior military commander said yesterday.

Anti-terror Task Force Trillium and Western Mindanao Naval Forces West (Navforwest) commander, Rear Admiral Alexander Pama citing development on the grounds said that a major fighting could happen anytime from now onward.

Full-scale military and police operations have been launched following the execution of three kidnapped victims late last week by the homegrown terrorist group headed by senior Abu Sayyaf commander Furuji Indama.

The theater of the ongoing full-scale combined law enforcement operations are several coastal and upland villages in Sumisip town.

Additional military reinforcement has been dispatched to the area to assist the territorial forces – the Army, Marines, Police Regional and Provincial Mobile Groups, Special Action Forces (SAF) – in nailing down Furuji and his followers.

“This is the reason why local folks from at least two villages opted to temporarily vacate their homes to safer grounds out of fear that they could be used as human shields by these militants,” Pama said.

Pama was referring to the more than 300 families who left their homes in villages of Sukaten and Baiwas in Sumisip.

These villages and its underlying environs are believed to be one of the strongholds of the Abu Sayyaf in the province.

Scout Ranger troops along with the local polcice troops on an anti-kidnapping operations clashed with Indama and his men Friday morning in Barangay Baiwas, killing two militants and wounding five others.

Two Scout Rangers were also wounded in the fighting. However, in the afternoon that same day, Marine troops were informed and later recovered the bodies of three of the kidnapped victims executed by the fleeing Abu Sayyaf in Barangay Sukaten.

The retrieved bodies of Claudio Mañanita, 32, an employee of Manggal Agrarian Reform Beneficiary Development Cooperative; Rolando Francisco, 23; and Dariel Quintela, 23, both parlor attendants bore signs that they were shot at close range by their Abu Sayyaf captors.

On their withdrawal, the bandits also fired indiscriminately on the civilians in the area, killing one and critically wounding another.

Medico legal examinations showed that Mañanita sustained five gunshot wounds; Francisco four and Quintela, three.

“Based on the findings of the police Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO), the victims were executed at close range,” Pama said.