By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
The Philippines military is looking into reports that a top Malaysian terror suspect reported to have been killed in a U.S.-backed airstrike in the country’s Muslim south two years ago may be alive, an official said.
Captain Rowena Muyuela, head of Western Mindanao Command’s public information office, said during a televised exclusive interview Saturday that military efforts to verify the alleged resurgence of Malaysian national Zulkifli Bin Abdul Hir - alias Marwan – are ongoing.
"We can't release details on our operation, it's very confidential, but we continue the efforts to verify the veracity or accuracy of reports," Muyuela said.
Marwan, a senior leader of Jemaah Islamiyah – an al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian organization - with a $5 million U.S. government bounty on his head – was previously believed to be among 15 suspected militants killed in an airstrike in Sulu province in February 2012.
The expert bomb maker had first went into hiding in the southern Philippines in 2003.
Earlier this week, however, media reports citing a confidential police interrogation of Khair Mundos, a captured commander of the Abu Sayyaf – another al-Qaeda-linked group, said that he had told investigators that Marwan was alive and operating in Mindanao - the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines.
Mundos, who served as an Abu Sayyaf financier with a $500,000 bounty for his capture, was arrested close to capital Manila’s international airport on June 9.
The Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research had reported that the Jemaah Islamiyah regional network and the local Abu Sayyaf in the Sulu Archipelago were already integrated to the point of almost operating as one organization.
In its report, it said the link between the groups is “almost complete," with close collaboration between the Abu Sayyaf and about a dozen Jemaah Islamiyah members, who entered the Philippines from Indonesia and have been providing support and training.
In June, another Jemaah Islamiyah bomb-making expert understood to have been killed in a U.S. drone attack that targeted a Pakistani Taliban leader had been seen alive in the country’s south.
Philippine military officials had said that Abdel Basit Usman was reportedly injured in a raid in Maguindanao, during which he escaped with members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
Army Lt. Col. Donald Hongitan had said, “This proves BIFF are not only coddling Jemaah Islamiyah but it seems they have strong ties."
Jemaah Islamiyah has a long record of bomb attacks in Indonesia and in the region, among them two simultaneous blasts in Bali nightclubs in October 2002 in which 202 people died.
The Abu Sayyaf, notorious for beheading kidnapped victims after ransoms are failed to be paid for their release, has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions since 1991. Meanwhile, the BIFF – like the Abu Sayyaf - espouses an independent Islamic state.
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