Offensive ‘wounds top militant suspect’

MANILA: Philippine troops have launched air strikes and ground assaults that reportedly wounded one of Southeast Asia’s mostwanted militant suspects who is trying to establish a new base for an alliance backing the Islamic State group, officials said yesterday.

Intelligence reports showed the assaults killed at least four militants, possibly including a Malaysian, and reportedly wounded the main target, Isnilon Hapilon, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.

He said Mr Hapilon apparently managed to flee from a camp in the mountainous hinterlands of Butig town in southern Lanao del Sur province. “Army troops are still in hot pursuit,” Mr Lorenzana said.

Air strikes targeted Mr Hapilon’s group on Wednesday and Thursday. Hundreds of troops, backed by artillery fire, then began pursuing him and other militants from the so-called Maute group in Butig, military chief of staff Gen Eduardo Ano said.

Mr Hapilon, who is on the US Department of Justice list of most-wanted terrorists worldwide with a reward of up to $5 million for his capture, moved to Butig from his stronghold on southern Basilan island a month ago to look for a base for his new militant alliance, Gen Ano said. Lanao is about 830km south of Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly warned that the emergence of IS-influenced militant groups is fast looming as a major national security threat. While pursuing peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, he has ordered the military to destroy smaller but brutal extremist groups like the Abu Sayyaf, which is dreaded for cross-border kidnappings, beheadings and bombings.

Mr Duterte asked the two Muslim rebel groups in talks with the government not to help extremists under attack by government forces, warning them such a move may break existing cease-fires.

“I am pleading. Do not allow the Maute and the other terrorist groups to enter and seek refuge in your camps,” Mr Duterte said in a speech after meeting Gen Ano, Mr Lorenzana and military commanders in the south. “If you share a part of your territory, you don’t allow us to enter, and you give them protection ... forget about peace, let’s just fight.”

A wave of Abu Sayyaf kidnappings of crewmen on ships, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, has sparked a regional security alarm.

Mr Hapilon, an Arabic-speaking Islamic preacher known for his expertise on commando assaults, has been indicted in the District of Columbia for alleged involvement in attacks on Americans and other foreigners. The elusive Abu Sayyaf commander pledged allegiance to the IS group in 2014.