SULU – Security forces captured an Abu Sayyaf fighter and led soldiers to a terrorist hideout in the southern Philippine province of Sulu where they recovered over a dozen pipe bombs which are potential weapons for suicide bombers.
Lt. Col Gerald Monfort, a spokesman for the anti-terror Joint Task Force Sulu, said the militant, who has been identified only by his alias ‘Mang,’ led troops November 5 to their hideout in Paligue village in the town of Indanan where soldiers killed three suicide bombers, two of them foreigners, in a firefight earlier that day.
He said troops seized 16 pipe bombs similar to the explosives recovered from the slain suicide bombers’ vests. “The 16 unrigged pipe bombs captured by government forces were completely identical to the captured improvised explosives recovered from the killed suicide bombers in Indanan,” he said.
Military photos released to The Zamboanga Post show the slain suicide bombers – 2 foreigners and a Filipino – in Indanan town in Sulu province. And the explosive belts and pipe bombs recovered from them.
Monfort was referring to the trio who was intercepted by soldiers late Tuesday afternoon in the village of Kan Islam after receiving intelligence of the planned attacks in the capital town of Jolo.
He said the bombers opened fire on soldiers and sparking a firefight that killed all three of them. The foreigners, he said, were believed to be the husband and son of another suicide bomber who blew herself up near a military base in Indanan town on September 8. The other bomber, a Filipino, was an Abu Sayyaf fighter.
Monfort said soldiers recovered a pair of explosive belts from the slain bombers, including a fragmentation grenade and an automatic pistol.
The military has imposed high security alert in the restive region against possible retaliatory attacks by pro-Islamic State terror groups following killing of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a recent U.S. raid in Syria.
Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, said that at least 7 foreign terrorists who were affiliated with the IS are trying to embed in the local existing terror organizations in southern Philippines. He said the Abu Sayyaf is coddling the terrorists in Basilan and Sulu, and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in Maguindanao province.
President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly said in public that ISIS is the biggest security threat in the country. Authorities have tagged the Abu Sayyaf, the BIFF and the Maute Group as terrorist groups with alleged links to the ISIS. Foreign ISIS militants and a local recruit had killed themselves in suicide attacks in Basilan and Sulu. (Zamboanga Post)
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