Manila: The palace on Sunday confirmed that another key member of the Abu Sayyaf was killed in an encounter with government forces in Sulu.
Sihata Latip, also known as Sihata Muallom Asmad, was killed when he tried to resist arrest by a joint police-military team in the village of Duyan Kaha in the town of Parang, Presidential Communication Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr., said in an interview aired by government radio station dzRB.
Reports said that Latip carries a P5.3-million (Dh433,414) $118,000) bounty, but government sources provided no information to that effect.
“The elimination of Latip proves the government’s determination to address and stop crimes perpetrated by lawless elements such as the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu,” Coloma said.
An unidentified government soldier was also killed during the incident.
“The name of the soldier will be released as soon as the armed forces of the Philippines have notified his family,” Coloma said.
Latip, according to Col. Alan Arrojado, chief of Task Group Sulu, had been involved in the kidnapping of 15 workers of the Golden Harvest Plantation in Basilan as well as the abduction of sixteen members of the non-Catholic Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2002.
Arrojado said the reason for the Saturday arrest of Latip was in connection with the Golden Harvest Plantation and Jehovah’s Witnesses abduction incidents.
“Latip had been positively identified as one of the Abu Sayyaf gunmen who took part in these incidents,” Arrojado said.
Last November 14, government forces killed Abu Sayyaf Group sub-leader Hairullah Asbang and eight other rebels.
Coloma encouraged Sulo residents to continue cooperating with authorities.
“We are asking full cooperation of the people in Sulu to put an end to the senseless crimes in the province,” said Coloma.
The incident in Parang followed the November 1 attack by the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan that killed six government soldiers. Basilan is located about 100 kilometres away from Sulu.
Soldiers of the army’s 64th infantry battalion were guarding an under-construction portion of the Basilan Circumferential Road in the village of Libug in the town of Sumisip when a group of Abu Sayyaf gunmen pounced on them at around 7:30am.
The soldiers were providing security for workers trying to finish the 64-km Basilan Circumferential Road. The government road project intends to bring development to the insurgency-infested southern Philippines island.
