A military assault on Muslim militants in the southern Philippines yesterday entered its fifth day, with 24 guerrillas and two soldiers killed in the fighting, Philippine officials said.
Ten Abu Sayyaf militants were killed in a two-hour clash on Friday after the army pounded their jungle lair on Jolo island with artillery and helicopter gunships, assault leader Colonel Alan Arrojado said.
Another 14 rebels and two troops had been killed since the fighting erupted on Tuesday, he said.
Photo: AFP
Battles were raging in the mountainous and thickly forested villages of Patikul town, an area controlled by Abu Sayyaf — a group of a few hundred gunmen with links to al-Qaeda.
The militants were reportedly moving with three Malaysian Jemaah Islamiyah members who had been providing them with bomb-making training, military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla told reporters.
“This [assault] will not stop until we put an end to the Abu Sayyaf,” Padilla said, adding that the Malaysians have been “monitored for some time.”
BALI BOMBINGS
Abu Sayyaf in the past have harbored Jemaah Islamiyah militants, including Umar Patek and Dulmatin, key suspects in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
The group is currently holding at least seven hostages, according to the military.
A German couple that they had held captive for six months were freed in October last year with the bandits claiming they were paid 250 million pesos (US$5.7 million) in ransom.
Despite receiving training assistance from the US, the Philippines has struggled to contain the Abu Sayyaf, whose leader last year pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
AL-QAEDA
Founded in the 1990s with seed money from al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf gained international notoriety for kidnapping foreigners for ransom.
The ransom payments enable the group to fund attacks and replenish its forces from Muslim communities in southern regions of the Philippines.
The group was also blamed for the worst terror attack in the country — the 2004 firebombing of a ferry off Manila Bay that killed more than 100 people.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of