Abu Sayyaf Leader Among 6 Suspects Gunned Down in Central Philippines

The Philippine military announced Wednesday they had shot dead an Abu Sayyaf militant leader in a raid that, one expert said, signaled the country can defeat the Islamic State, which has used the local group to expand in Southeast Asia.

Muammar Askali (also known as Abu Rami), who appeared in videos of hostages being executed by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), died in a shootout Tuesday with security forces that also left three soldiers and a police officer dead as militants launched a failed raid on the central Philippine island resort of Bohol, news reports said.

Bohol is a popular tourist destination far from ASG’s base in the southern Philippines.

“Askali is the leader of the IS Group in Sulu, composed mostly of ASG. His death demonstrates that both Philippines National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines can defeat IS in the Philippines,” according to Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based expert on Southeast Asian extremist groups and a BenarNews columnist.

ASG has pledged its allegiance to Islamic State and, before his death, Abu Rami was working with Isnilon Hapilon, the leader of IS Philippines, Islamic State’s local affiliate, he told BenarNews.

In late January, Isnilon was reported to have been injured in a strike carried out by the Philippine military in Lanao del Sur, on the southern island of Mindanao.

On Wednesday, security forces were hunting for more suspected ASG gunmen, following the foiled raid in which the militants were planning to kidnap as many as a dozen tourists from the area, Philippine Armed Forces Chief of Staff Eduardo Ano said.

Officials identified the body of Abu Rami through post-mortem photos shown to captured ASG suspects, and recovered the body from the scene of the gun battle in Inabanga, Bohol, Ano told the Associated Press.

“This is a major blow to the Abu Sayyaf,” Ano said, according to AP. “If they have further plans to kidnap innocent people somewhere, they will now have to think twice.”

Full story: BenarNews

Colin Forsythe
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia