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The military will defeat the Abu
Sayyaf before the midterm election in May, a senior Armed Forces
commander said Sunday.
“Outnumbered
by military forces 10 to one, the Abu Sayyaf will be defeated before
the May midterm election,” Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, commander for
Western Mindanao, told reporters during the Philippine Military
Academy homecoming in Baguio City.
He said the
military has more than 10,000 troops on the ground in Sulu and that
it was only a “matter of time” before the Abu Sayyaf was
defeated.
“Before the
elections, we will get the high-value targets,” Cedo said.
He said the
Armed Forces chief of staff, General Hermogenes Esperon, had given
him the preelection deadline to “finish off” the Islamic
extremists.
Cedo said
pursuit operations, backed by US military intelligence, are focused
on the remaining Abu Sayyaf leaders: one-armed septuagenarian
Radullan Sahiron and Isnilon Hapilon; and two Jemaah Islamiah
members who allegedly masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings, Umar
Patek and Dulmatin.
The Abu Sayyaf
and the JI have been blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the
country including the bombing of a ferry off Manila Bay in 2004,
which killed more than 200 people.
The military
scored a major victory recently in killing the Abu Sayyaf’s chief
planner Abu Solaiman and its leader Khadaffy Janjalani.
Janjalani, who
had a bounty of $5 million, was believed to have died from gunshot
wounds he sustained during a gun battle with Marines on September 4.
Last month
Solaiman was killed after special forces troops stormed an Abu
Sayyaf lair in Mount Dapo, Talipao, Sulu.
The Abu Sayyaf
and JI have been blamed for the series of deadly bombing attacks in
the country.
The
bloodiest attack was carried out on the SuperFerry 14 on February
27, 2004, in which a bomb aboard killed more than 200 people.
 --Anthony
Vargas and AFP
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