ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 2, 2012) – The Philippine military, aided by a US spy plane, bombed a terrorist hideout early on Thursday in the southern island of Sulu and killed as many as a dozen gunmen, among them two Jemaah Islamiya bombers and a senior Abu Sayyaf leader, officials said.
Officials said two military planes struck the hideout of Umbra Jumdail – dropping bombs on the hinterland village of Lanao Dakula in Parang town at around 2.30 a.m. – and destroying the target.
One military official told the Mindanao Examiner that an unmanned US drone helped tracked down the terrorist hideout before a pair of ageing Philippine Air Force OV10 planes bombed the Abu Sayyaf hideout where Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, and Indian Abdullah Ali, alias Muawiyah, were also hiding.
Zulkifli and Abdullah are included in the US wanted list and carried a $5 million and $50,000 bounty respectively, while Jumdail also had a $140,000 reward for his capture dead or alive.
“We have reports that Jumdail, Marwan and Muawiyah were killed in the air strikes and along with many other terrorists and possibly at least a dozen are believed killed in the operations,” Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, commander of police forces in Sulu, said in a separate interview.
Freyra, who led police commandos in the ground operation, said the terrorist hideout was totally destroyed. “Nothing is left of the camp and everything disintegrated at ground zero, but there is a report that some terrorists were able to take away some of the bodies. Two of six bodies recovered by the Abu Sayyaf were left behind for a still unknown reason. Our informants also spotted rebel leader Ahadun Adak with at least 21 followers near the area,” he told the Mindanao Examiner.
The Abu Sayyaf has been coddling Jemaah Islamiya terrorists tagged as behind the spate of bombings in the southern Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)
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