Philippine troops kill militant who led raid on tourist spot

Convert Joselito Melloria’s helpers flee gun battle

CEBU // Philippine forces killed a Muslim militant yesterday in tourist destination where troops foiled kidnapping and bombing plots by extremists this month, officials said.

Troops and police killed Joselito Melloria in a gun battle with about seven militants near the town of Clarin in Bohol province. Melloria’s companions fled and were being pursued by troops, police said.

Melloria, a convert to Islam and Bohol resident, guided Abu Sayyaf militants from their jun- gle camps in the south to his village in the Inabanga area to carry out ransom kidnappings and bombings. But troops detected the militants and killed four of them on April 11 in fighting that also resulted in the deaths of three soldiers, a policeman and two villagers.

Melloria fled with at least seven others.

A massive search by police and the military followed, as president Rodrigo Duterte offered a 1 million peso (Dh73,700) reward for information leading to their capture.

A military profile of Melloria, who used the militant name Abu Alih, says he converted to Islam when he married a Muslim woman in the southern province of Zamboanga del Sur in 2005.

After a year- long trip to Saudi Arabia, he returned to the Philippines in 2015 and joined Maute, a small group based in the south that has pledged allegiance to ISIL.

He later joined another ISIL-linked group, Ansar Khilafa Philippines, and Abu Sayyaf, the military report said.

Philippine security officials said that had the Bohol plots been successful, Melloria would have been appointed to lead Ansar Khilafa Philippines, whose leader was killed in a clash with police in the south in January.

Clarin police chief Fernando Peroramas said villagers in his town had become jittery since violence with Abu Sayyaf erupted.