MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Philippine forces killed an Abu Sayyaf rebel commander blamed for years of ransom kidnapping and rescued the last of his four Indonesian prisoners on Sunday, the army said.
Marines injured Amajan Sahidjuan in a shootout Saturday night and he later died of blood loss on Kalupag Island in the southernmost province of Tawi Tawi. Two other militants managed to flee and dragged the last of four Indonesian hostages, but troops eventually rescued him on Sunday, regional military commander Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan Jr.
On Thursday evening, three Indonesian men were rescued by police who also captured one of their Abu Sayyaf kidnappers along the coast of the town of South Ubian in Tawi Tawi.
The military said Abu Sayyaf militants led by Sahidjuan were fleeing attacks in nearby Sulu province when their speedboat was lashed by huge waves and toppled in front of Tawi Tawi.
A military officer said the militants attempted to cross the sea border to Tambisan Island in Malaysia’s neighboring state of Sabah to release the prisoners in exchange for a ransom of at least five million pesos ($ 104,000), but the Philippine army got air of the plan and launched covert attacks.
The officer, who has good knowledge of anti-Abu Sayyaf operations, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to speak publicly.
Vinluan said the rescue of the Indonesian men, the last known hostages held by Abu Sayyaf, would allow government forces to kill the ransom-seeking rebels.
“It will just be relentless in a massive and targeted military operation, because now we don’t have to worry about kidnapping victims being hit,” Vinluan told reporters over the phone.
Vinluan said there were about 80 gunmen from Abu Sayyaf left in Sulu and remote island provinces. One of their surviving elder leaders, Radulan Sahiron, fell ill and was injured in a recent offensive in Sulu, he said.
Sahidjuan, who uses the nom de guerre Apuh Mike, has been blamed for ransom kidnappings since the early 1990s. He was reportedly one of the Abu Sayyaf militants who attacked the southern largely Christian town of Ipil in 1995, where they murdered more than 50 people after robbing banks and shops and burning the city center in one of their most daring raids. .
The Abu Sayyaf is a small but violent group that has been separately blacklisted by the Philippines and the United States as a terrorist organization for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings. Some of its factions have joined the Islamic State group.
The militants have been significantly weakened by years of military offensives, surrender and combat setbacks, but remain a threat to national security. They have set off a security alert in the region in recent years after they began venturing out of their jungle encampments in Sulu, a poverty-stricken Muslim province in the largely Roman Catholic nation, and kidnappings in coastal Malaysian towns and targeted cargo ship crews.