Firefight between rebels, soldiers leaves 9 dead
MANILA — Philippine soldiers clashed Tuesday with members of a militant group known for beheading foreign hostages, leaving five rebels and four members of the security forces dead at a popular tourist destination in the central Philippines, the police and military said.
Soldiers and the provincial police clashed with rebels on the island of Bohol, about 400 miles south of Manila, after spotting 10 armed members of Abu Sayyaf on three boats, the military said in a statement.
The firefight came a day after the American and Australian embassies warned their citizens against traveling to areas in the central Philippine region of Visayas, particularly the islands of Cebu and Bohol. They said they received “unsubstantiated yet credible information that terrorist groups may attempt to conduct kidnapping.”
The embassies did not identify the source of the information, nor did they cite Abu Sayyaf, a small group of Islamic militants that once was an affiliate of al Qeida but has since pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, according to Philippine intelligence officials.
Col. Edgard Arevalo, a spokesman of the armed forces, said the troops cornered the militants in an isolated section of the coastal town of Inabanga, prompting the clashes. The rebels, who were heavily armed, he said, were “believed to be” members of Abu Sayyaf.
“As of this time, five were killed on the enemy side,” Arevalo said, adding that troops had recovered four firearms and a homemade bomb from the militants. He said three soldiers and one police officer also died.
“They arrived here last night, and we immediately dispatched our troops,” Arevalo said, leading to the confrontation early Tuesday.
Numbering around 400, Abu Sayyaf is known for abducting foreign and local tourists, then ransoming them off. In 2004, the militants bombed a passenger ferry off Manila Bay, killing more than 100 in the country’s worst terrorist attack.
In February, the group beheaded Juergen Kantner, 70, a yachtsman from Germany, after his government did not pay a $600,000 ransom. They did so after seizing his boat in November as he and his partner sailed in southern Philippine waters. News reports at the time said that the militants shot her.
Last year, Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Canadian hostages they had seized from a beach resort on Samal Island, also in the south.
The group operates in mostly poor areas on the southern islands of Basilan and Sulu. Despite its small size, it has rebuffed countless military offensives and remains a serious threat, often using abductions to raise funds and killing hostages when ransoms are not paid.
Rommel Banlaoi, director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies, based in Manila, said Abu Sayyaf had survived by working with other criminal groups around the archipelago.
“It remains highly capable, because it has followers in Visayas,” he said. “The core of the Abu Sayyaf group remains small, but its network with criminal groups nationwide is huge.”