3 Philippine troops dead in fighting in troubled south

By Hader Glang

ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines

At least three soldiers have been killed and seventeen others injured in clashes with a Daesh-linked militant group in the Philippines’ troubled south.

Maj. Filemon Tan Jr., Western Mindanao Command spokesman, said in a statement Sunday that heavy fighting broke out Saturday morning in Patikul town in the island province of Sulu -- a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf.

"Operating troops of the 35th Infantry Battalion under the Joint Task Force Sulu while conducting focused military operations engaged in an armed confrontation with more or less 150 Abu Sayyaf members," he said.

Tan added that the militants were under the command of notorious Abu Sayyaf leader Radullan Sahiron, who has a $1 million bounty on his head for alleged involvement in the kidnapping of U.S. tourists in 2001.

"Fire support and close air support were provided to the engaging troops. Adjacent units also conducted blocking and pursuit operations," he said.

The militants reportedly withdrew nearly an hour into the armed confrontation with an undetermined number of casualties, and troops are continue to pursue Sahiron's group in Patikul.

The armed forces have been engaged in intensified operations against the Abu Sayyaf since August under orders issued by President Rodrigo Duterte after the group beheaded an 18-year-old Filipino hostage.

On Saturday, Tan also announced that a senior Abu Sayyaf leader blamed in the kidnapping of three foreigners and a Filipina from the southern resort island of Samal last year had been killed by Malaysian security forces.

Abraham Hamid and two of his cohorts were killed in a shootout earlier this week in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah -- an area near which the Abu Sayyaf and connected kidnap-for-ransom gangs operate.

According to Tan, two other Abu Sayyaf members were captured.

Of the four hostages captured off Samal, two Canadians were beheaded earlier this year and a Norwegian and the Filipina released.

Hamid’s group was also tagged in the kidnapping of four Indonesian crew members from a tugboat near the maritime border with Malaysia in April.

Since 1991, the group -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.

It is one of two militant groups in the south to have pledged allegiance to Daesh, prompting fears during the stalling of a peace process between the government and the country’s one-time largest Moro rebel group that it could make inroads in a region torn by decades of armed conflict.