By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY
Five Abu Sayyaf insurgents have been killed in an army operation in the southern Philippines, the military said Monday.
Government troops captured a camp belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked group on the southern island of Basilan on Sunday, Captain Rowena Muyuela, spokeswoman for the Western Mindanao Command, told The Anadolu Agency in an emailed statement. Basilan is a militant stronghold island southwest of Mindandao.
"The Joint Task Group Basilan, while conducting law enforcement operations, encountered undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf Group, resulting to the death of five ASG members in Sumisip, Basilan," Muyuela said.
The firefight at 07.50 local time (01.50 Turkish time) was followed by the discovery of a fortified camp, weapons and “subversive documents,” the spokeswoman added.
Colonel Rolando Joselito D. Bautista, commander of the Philippine Army's 104th Brigade, said government forces suffered no casualties.
Meanwhile, police in Zamboanga City announced charges against alleged an Abu Sayyaf member for the bombing of a massage parlor in the city earlier this month.
Superintendent Ariel Huesca, a spokesman for the city police, said Muammar Askalani, also known as Abu Ramy, had been identified by witnesses as the man who bought a rice container used to conceal the bomb. He was also identified as the person who ordered soft drinks and left the rice container inside the palor.
A bomb squad officer and his dog were wounded in a secondary blast on Nov. 9.
The deaths in Basilan came as the armed forces and police conducted large scale operations in Basilan and the neighboring island province of Sulu.
On Saturday, Abu Sayyaf leader Sihata Latip was killed in a shootout in Parang, Sulu. He was suspected of involvement in a number of kidnappings and had a 5 million Philippine peso ($110,000) bounty on his head.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a struggle for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.
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