MANILA, Aug 30 (NNN-PNA) – Three people were killed, including a soldier, and seven other soldiers wounded, when government forces clashed on Saturday, with some 30 Abu Sayyaf fighters, in the jungles of Sulu province in the southern Philippines, the military said.
Brigadier General William Gonzales, the joint task force Sulu commander, said, the 30-minute clash broke out around 9:45 a.m. local time, in a village near Patikul town, and left two terrorists and a soldier dead.
He said, the troops also recovered two high-powered firearms from the fleeing terrorists.
Gonzales said, troops were pursuing the group that carried out the Aug 24 twin suicide bombing attacks in Jolo, the capital of Sulu, that killed 15 people and wounded 74 others. Soldiers and policemen were among the casualties.
Jolo has long been a base for the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.
On Jan 27, 2019, two bombs rocked a cathedral in Jolo that left 23 people killed and 95 others injured.
The Abu Sayyaf Group is a loose band of violent extremist groups in the southern Philippines. The group, with an estimated 400 members, is active in the impoverished island provinces of Sulu and Basilan.
The group, which has been sowing terror in southern Philippines since the 1990’s, is responsible for the series of kidnappings, deadly bombings, ambushes of security personnel, public beheadings, assassinations, and extortion in the Mindanao region.– NNN-PNA
