RoP Battles Philippine Troops
Charles Johnson
Thu Nov 24, 2005 at 10:24 pm PST • Views: 218
Philippine Troops Kill 15 Rebels After Air Strike. (Hat tip: Ethel.)
The military said six soldiers had been killed and 33 wounded since November 11, when troops hunting a one-armed, horse-riding Abu Sayyaf commander clashed with a large group of militants on Jolo.
Last week, an estimated 25 rebels were killed in gunbattles in another part of Indanan town, but only three bodies were found at the scene.
Army officials said 2,000 troops were battling about 150 Abu Sayyaf rebels and rogue members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a larger Muslim separatist group that signed an Indonesian-brokered peace deal with the government in 1996.
Abu Sayyaf, with about 400 fighters, is suspected of links to al Qaeda and the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah.
Abu Sayyaf is blamed for a series of bombings in the southern Philippines and Manila in the last three years, including the country’s worst terror attack — the bombing of a ferry near the capital in February 2004 that killed more than 100 people.
Frank says: