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300 Philippine soldiers overrun base of Islamist militants
300 Philippine soldiers backed by heavy artillery and mortar shelling overrun a base of Islamist militants deep in the hills of a remote southern island.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:07 May 1, 2008
Manila: About 300 Philippine soldiers backed by heavy artillery and mortar shelling overran a base of Islamist militants deep in the hills of a remote southern island Wednesday a senior general said.
Brigadier-General Juancho Sabban, the commander of Marine units and elite army detachments on the island of Jolo, said at least 200 members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group, besides nearly a dozen Indonesians fighting for the Jemaah Islamiah (JI), were in the camp at the time.
"We were able to capture the camp," Sabban told reporters. "They were very close to something big, so we launched a pre-emptive strike using our artillery and our ground forces," he said, adding that the army had acted based on intelligence reports.
Sabban said the rebels suffered heavy losses in the fighting that started just after midnight on Tuesday but gave no further details. Many of the rebels managed to escape, other officials said.
The commander said government forces had not suffered any casualties in the attack on the camp, which also housed a bomb-making factory.
The military operations did not affect nearby local communities, he said, although there were some reports that civilians had fled their farms and homes to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. The Abu Sayyaf was blamed for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of a ferry near Manila Bay in 2004, which killed more than 100 people.
Key members of the JI, including some wanted for the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, are believed to have fled to the Philippines' southern islands in 2003 and taken refuge with the Abu Sayyaf.
While mainstream Muslim rebel groups in the Philippines have signed peace accords with Manila and are negotiating for some measure of self-rule in the south, the Abu Sayyaf continues to bomb civilian targets and uses kidnap-for-ransom to fund its activities.
Since 2002, the United States has been helping its former colony hunt down members of the Abu Sayyaf and the JI by extending training and equipment.
A senior military commander in Jolo said the operation was prompted by intelligence reports that the rebels were up to "something big".
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