By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Philippine government troops have overrun three camps believed to be "harboring sites" of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group in the southern province of Sulu – an known Abu Sayyaf stronghold.
Army spokesperson Capt. Rowena Muyuela told The Anadolu Agency on Thursday that units of Joint Task Group Sulu had been conducting pursuit operations in the jungles of Patikul town when they came across three camps.
According to the military, the camps were "harboring sites" for an Abu Sayyaf group led by Commander Radula Sahiron, believed to be holding captive a Dutch birdwatcher.
Col. Alan Arrojado, Joint Task Group commander, told defense corps reporters based in southern Zamboanga City, "the camps are separately set up in Patikul jungles and have abandoned nipa huts [indigenous stilt houses], clothes and food."
Bomb-making materials such as six 20-liter and two 15-liter containers filled with ammonium nitrate, packs of blasting caps and PVC pipes were also recovered from one of the sites.
According to Arrojado, the capture of the Abu Sayyaf bases shows the bandits are on the run following military operations.
Arrojado, however, would not say whether kidnap victim Ewold Horn had been held at one of the camps.
Earlier this month, Horn’s companion Swiss birdwatcher Lorenzo Vinciguerra escaped from their captors, hacking one to death and sustaining a face injury in the process.
Sahiron is described in military reports as a one-armed, horse-riding rebel leader who reportedly took control of the Abu Sayyaf following the death of Khadaffy Janjalani in September 2006.
In mid November, soldiers conducting law enforcement operations encountered around 200 Abu Sayyaf members led by Sahiron, prompting a five-hour gun battle that killed five soldiers and ten insurgents in Sulu.
In July, the Abu Sayyaf posted a video on YouTube in which a black-clad Abu Sayyaf commander, Isnilon Hapilon, links arms with other mostly masked men.
Speaking a combination of his native Yakan dialect and Arabic, Hapilon and his men swear allegiance -- or “bay’ah” -- to the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) and its leader, Abu Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Hapilon, who carries a U.S. bouty of $5 million on his head, was indicted in the Washington for “terrorist acts against United States nationals and other foreign nationals.”
U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg, however, said he does not believe there is an “organic relationship” between ISIL and militant groups in the Philippines.
In an interview Wednesday with news channel ABS-CBN, Goldberg denied reports that the U.S. had confirmed ISIL recruitment in the Philippines. He said that while the threat posed by the group was a serious matter, it does not need to be exaggerated.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines.
It is notorious for beheading victims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.
ISIL has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, later declaring the territories under its control an Islamic "caliphate."
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