Army, PNP verifying reports of Basit Usman sighting in Basilan

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 13): Army, PNP verifying reports of Basit Usman sighting in Basilan
 

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 town.

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