Police and military authorities are verifying reports that
wanted Filipino bomb expert Abdul Basit Usman was sighted in one of Basilan's
remote villages.
This, after a former town mayor of Basilan told reporters
Usman was sighted with about 10 armed men, four of whom were foreign looking.
Chief Supt. Ronald Estilles, police regional director in the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) based in Parang, Maguindanao and
who has administrative and operational control over police in the island
province, directed the Basilan PNP to verify the reports.
Rear Admiral Reynaldo Yoma, commander of Joint Task Force
Zambasulta, told reporters the military is verifying the report.
Mayor Joel Maturan, former mayor of Ungkaya Pukan town, told
reporters he was able to talk to one of the commanders of the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) in Basilan who told him Usman and a group of Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) was seen in a remote village of Tuburan
He did not say when the group was sighted.
With the statement from ex-Mayor Maturan, military
intelligence officials believed Usman, who carries a 1 million US-dollar
bounty, could have slipped out of Maguindanao and went to Basilan at the height
of the military's massive law enforcement operations in Maguindanao.
He said Usman is being coddled by a former MILF commander
who turned official of the Abu Sayaff Group.
Senior Superintendent Mario Buyuccan, Basilan police
provincial director, has reported to PNP-ARMM that it received the report over
the weekend and has been verifying the presence of the country's most wanted
man.
Before he was monitored in Maguindanao along with the slain
Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias 'Marwan," Usman stayed in the
jungles of Basilan and preached radical Islam.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=752657
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