Philippine military intelligence agents went on high alert yesterday to thwart revenge attacks by Muslim extremists after the government confirmed the death of the leader of the Abu Sayyaf group.
Security forces were monitoring urban centers, specially in southern Mindanao island, where members of the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah network are known to operate, a military spokesman said.
"Intelligence [are] monitoring to prevent any retaliatory attacks," Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said on DZBB radio.
Warning
The warning came a day after the military announced that DNA tests carried out by US investigators confirmed that a body recovered last month on Jolo island was that of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani.
Janjalani, also known as the Emir, became the overall leader of the al-Qaeda linked group when his brother, Abubakar Abdurajak Janjalani, was killed by police in 1998.
The elder Janjalani founded the Abu Sayyaf in the early 1990s to fight for an independent Islamic state on Mindanao. At one time, he allegedly received funding from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Under the younger Janjalani's leadership, the Abu Sayyaf adopted terror tactics, specializing in kidnappings for ransom and bombings.
Together with another top Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Solaiman, Janjalani masterminded the kidnapping deaths of two US citizens in 2001 and the firebombing of a ferry on Manila Bay that left over 100 dead.
Vacuum
The military said it killed Solaiman last week, creating a "leadership vacuum," Bacarro said.
"They have a leadership vacuum now and are disorganized. We will take the advantage by keeping up the tempo and continuing the operations against them," he said.
He said it would take some time for the scattered Abu Sayyaf members to regroup under one command, but conceded desperate militants could stage random attacks.
More than 5,000 troops are scouring the dense jungles of Jolo for remnants of the Abu Sayyaf, who are also believed to be protecting wanted Jemaah Islamiyah bomb experts Dulmatin and Umar Patek, wanted for the October 2002 bombings in Bali.
The Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah are both on the US watchlist of foreign terrorist organizations. US forces are providing intelligence back-up to their Philippine counterparts on Jolo.
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