A suspected Indonesian militant has been killed and one of Southeast Asia’s top terror suspects is fighting for his life after they were hit in airstrikes at the start of a covert offensive in Butig, Lanao del Sur, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Ano said yesterday.
Ano said the body of the suspected Indonesian, known by his nom de guerre “Mohisen,” was recovered by troops along with three slain Filipino followers of Abu Sayyaf Group commander Isnilon Hapilon, who was seriously wounded in the hilly outskirts of Butig.
The Armed Forces chief said 15 members of the Abu Sayyaf and Maute Groups led by Hapilon and brothers Abdullah Omar and Otto Maute were killed in the offensive. Seven other militants, including Hapilon and a foreigner, were wounded.
Hapilon was wounded in the arm and was losing blood after air force warplanes, including South Korean-made FA50 fighter jets, unleashed 225-kilogram bombs Wednesday night and Thursday on a militant encampment in an ongoing offensive, Ano said. It was the first time that the FA50s, which were acquired in late 2015 as the military’s only fighter jets, were deployed in a combat mission.
Hapilon, who has reportedly been designated to lead an Islamic State group branch in Southeast Asia, was being moved around by his men in a makeshift stretcher but could not escape from Lanao, about 830 kilometers south of Manila, because artillery-backed troops have blocked possible exit points, Ano said. (Francis T. Wakefield)