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By Anthony Vargas, Reporter and Al
Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: The military clashed early
Tuesday with a group of suspected Islamic militants in an island
south of Basilan province, military reports said.
Commandos raided a small island called Langhil
before dawn and killed ten militants, but four soldiers were also
slain in the fighting that lasted 35 minutes. “Ten Abu Sayyaf
terrorists were killed in the fighting today; four soldiers are also
dead,” Army Maj. Eugene Batara told The Manila Times.
Of the ten casualties, four were members of the
navy’s elite Naval Special Operations Group (Navsog) and the rest
were suspected to be Muslim bandits, a navy spokesman said.
Navy Spokesman, Marine Lt. Colonel Ariel
Caculitan said two Navsog men were also wounded in the encounter
that took place on Langhil Island in the southern coast of Basilan.
The navy spokesman said troops were still
verifying the identities of the six Islamic militants who were
killed in the said encounter, the first to happen this month.
“We are not discounting the possibility that
the casualties from the side of the enemies are members of the Abu
Sayyaf groups,” Caculitan told reporters in a phone patched
briefing in Camp Aguinaldo.
Caculitan added that the Abu Sayyaf bandits were
under brothers Abdurajak and Faizal Sadikal. It was unknown whether
the two escaped or were among the dead.
“We still don’t know whether the two
leaders were killed or wounded or have escaped. The operation is
going and security forces are tracking down the terrorists,” he
said.
The names of the four navy troops killed in the
said encounter were withheld pending notification of their families,
while the two wounded are now in stable conditions after having been
airlifted to a military hospital in Zamboanga City, said the navy
spokesman.
The fighting broke out a day after US Ambassador
Kristie Kenney inspected infrastructure projects funded by the
United States Agency for International Development in Basilan
Island.
Last month, the US deployed a small team of
soldiers on the island to help the Filipino military fight terrorism
after Abu Sayyaf militants killed and wounded dozens of local
soldiers in separate attacks over the past months.
Basilan Island was a known stronghold of the Abu
Sayyaf until Filipino troops, backed by US forces, drove them away
in 2001. Since then, dozens of Abu Sayyaf militants had been killed
and wounded and their supporters arrested in a massive crackdown
against terrorism.
But the Abu Sayyaf slowly returned over the
years after the government failed to address increasing poverty on
the island and the military’s failure to carry out a continued
campaign against the group.
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