34 suspected Abu Sayyaf members nabbed in Sulu

SOLDIERS GUNNED down a drug trafficker and arrested 34 others, all identified with the Abu Sayyaf, in a law enforcement operation Wednesday in Patikul town in Sulu. Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore C. Sindac, police director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), on Thursday said the fatality, Jah Addul, died from multiple gunshot wounds sustained in an encounter with pursuing policemen and soldiers. Addul and his cohorts attacked the combined police and Army personnel tasked to arrest one of them. The Abu Sayyaf has small groups in Patikul, which is not too distant from Jolo, the capital town of Sulu, a component province of ARMM. Sindac said members of the Sulu provincial police office and the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion were to search for Namil Ahajari in a secluded area in Barangay Danag but his followers resisted, sparking a gunfight. Ahajari, who belong to the Abu Sayyaf, is wanted for heinous offenses and has pending criminal cases in local courts. —