ZAMBOANGA CITY – Government troops killed a notorious Abu Sayyaf leader, tagged as among those who kidnapped two German yachters, while evading capture in Sulu in the southern Philippines.
Military spokeswoman Captain Maria Rowena Muyuela said Sihata Latip engaged security forces trying to arrest him in the village of Duyan Kaha in Parang town late Saturday afternoon. She said one soldier was killed and another wounded in the fighting.
“Latip was killed when he resisted arrest and engaged security forces in a firefight. One soldier was killed while another is wounded during the brief clash with the Abu Sayyaf leader,” Muyuela, who quoted a military report, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
She said a report by Colonel Alan Arojado, commander of an anti-terror task force in Sulu, tagged Latip as involved in the kidnappings of foreigners and attacks against security forces.
“Latip was involved in the kidnappings of foreigners and in the series of violent attacks against government forces. The military and police are continuously pursuing notorious leaders of the Abu Sayyaf who are now on the run in Sulu,” Muyuela said.
Philippine military chief General Gregorio Catapang commended troops for killing Latip who was implicated by authorities in the April 25 kidnappings of Stefan Viktor Okonek, 71, and Henrike Diesen, 55. Both hostages were freed by the Abu Sayyaf on October 17 in exchange for P250 million ransoms. The duo was heading to Sabah in Malaysia on a private yacht from a holiday in Palawan province when militants – who were returning to Sulu from a failed kidnapping in Sabah – spotted the Germans and seized them on April 25.
The Abu Sayyaf is still holding a Malaysian policeman Kons Zakiah Aleip, 26, who was seized on June 12 also this year following a clash in Sabah that killed another policeman. The militants are demanding 5 million ringgits (P68.3 million).
They are also threatening to behead another kidnapped Malaysian fish breeder Chan Sai Chuin, 32, if ransom is not paid by his family this November. The rebels are demanding 3 million ringgits (P41 million) for the safe release of the fish breeder, who was kidnapped along with a Filipino worker on June 16 this year from a fish farm in the town of Kunak in Tawau District in Sabah.
Aside from the Malaysians, the militants are still holding hostage a 64-year old Japanese treasure hunter Katayama Mamaito, who was kidnapped from Pangutaran Island in July 2010; and two European wildlife photographers Ewold Horn, 52, from Holland; and Lorenzo Vinciguerre, 47, from Switzerland, who were taken captive in the coastal village of Parangan in Panglima Sugala town in the southern Tawi-Tawi province in 2012. And several Filipinos kidnapped in other provinces and brought to Sulu.
The military said the Abu Sayyaf rebels are hiding in civilian communities and have moved their hostages from one hideout to another making it extremely difficult for security forces to track them down. But a firefight earlier this month killed and wounded over 50 soldiers and rebels in Sulu’s hinterlands. (Mindanao Examiner)
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