Abu Sayyaf terror group's overall leader reportedly dead
The Philippine military is verifying his reported death.
SULU: The Philippine military on Monday reportedly said they are verifying reports that the overall leader of the Abu Sayyaf terror group has died of natural causes.
Radullan Sahiron was among the militants who made the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) a byword in international terrorism for helping carry out bombings and transborder kidnappings.
Some residents from the far-southern Sulu island province posted on social media that the one-armed Sahiron had died, prompting the police and military to look for confirmation, it has been reported.
A Joint Task Force-Sulu (JTF-Sulu) official would not confirm or deny Sahiron’s death “unless there is an eyeball confirmation,” but said he had received similar reports, reported the BenarNews news service.
The official did not want to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media about the matter.
SEA MILITANCY has reached out to a public information officer of JTF-Sulu, a multiagency antiterror military force, and is still awaiting a response.
Sahiron, for whom the US is offering a USD1 million bounty, has not been much heard of since 2017, when he was widely reported to be suffering from age-related illnesses.
A native of Sulu’s Patikul town, Sahiron was originally among the fighters of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in Sulu, according to the military.
He was later acknowledged to be among the original members of the ASG after the MNLF signed a peace deal with the government in the 1990s.
Sahiron earned the nickname Commander Putol (one arm) because his right arm was amputated above the elbow after he was injured during a fight with Philippine security forces in the 1970s.
Since 2005, Sahiron has been the overall ASG leader, said the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme.
Sahiron ordered bombings on Jolo Island in 2004, killing 11 Filipino civilians and a U.S. serviceman and wounding more than 200 others. The improvised explosive devices used in the bombings were initially assembled at Sahiron’s headquarters, Camp Tubig Tuh-Tuh, on Jolo Island, Philippines, said the State Department.
Sahiron played a role in the May 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping of three U.S. citizens and 17 Filipinos from a tourist resort in Palawan, Philippines. Several of the hostages were murdered.
Sahiron was considered the key leader of the April 2000 kidnapping from a diving island resort of Sipadan in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah. Sahiron and four other ASG members abducted 21 foreign tourists and resort employees, including Westerners, Malaysians, and Filipinos, said the State Department further.