Philippine Air Forcce News - April 19, 2018

Basa Air Force to serve as home base for PAF’s FA-50 fighter jets

The Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga will start operating and housing the Philippine Air Force (PAF)'s 12 FA-50 PH "Fighting Eagle" light-lift fighter trainers by fourth quarter this year.

The move is in coordination with the PAF's "Balik Basa" program, 5th Fighter Wing public information officer Lt. Gary Regalado said in a text message to the Philippine News Agency Wednesday.

"Basa Air base will re-establish itself as the PAF's first line of air defense against all threats both foreign and domestic. Moving the FA-50s back to Basa ensures that we become the center of air defense operations here in the Philippines," he added.

The 5th Fighter Wing is the PAF unit tasked with fast jet operations and air defense.

file photo

DND chief: PAF to have more air assets within the year

The Philippine Air Force (PAF) will be getting more flyable assets to fulfill its mandate to serve and protect the country.

The command will get two additional C-130 "Hercules" cargo aircraft, four more W-3A "Sokol" combat utility helicopters, and 21 refurbished UH-IH "Huey" general purpose helicopters before the end of the year.

"Our two C-130s will soon come out of its inspection and repair period and boost our 'Hercules" fleet to three. On the other hand, our W-3A "Sokol" will grow by eight as another four will be delivered by November to join the four earlier commissioned last March," Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said.

Aside from this, PAF will be putting into service 21 UH-1H "Hueys" into squadron service before the end of 2012.

The DND chief added that this is on top of the 10 attack helicopters following the signing and approval of the contract.

But when asked about the timetable on the PAF's acquisition of new fighter aircraft for its interceptor arm, Gazmin said that they are still in the process of assessing what is the most affordable and capable aircraft for the Philippines.

"We are in the process of the defense acquisition system that will be presented within the month and we are looking at several aircraft from South Korea, Italy, and the United States," Gazmin said.

The PAF is currently operating 48 UH-IH "Huey" general purpose helicopters, 18 MG-520 "Defender" attack helicopters, eight OV-10 North American "Bronco" turboprop bombers and three S-211 Augusta trainer jets.

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Philippine News Agency/ People's Television | May 10, 2012 | Article Link

Smart bombs no, smart pilots yes, says PAF general

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Philippine Air Force (PAF) used “smart pilots”—not US satellite-guided “smart bombs”—when it hit an Abu Sayyaf lair in Parang, Sulu province, on February 2 and killed a bandit leader, Gumbahali Jumdail, and other terrorists, a PAF general insisted Thursday.

Major General Jose Tony Villarete, commander of the 3rd Air Division based in Zamboanga City, was reacting to an Associated Press report which said the PAF used satellite-guided bombs—a previously unavailable technology acquired from the United States in blasting the Abu Sayyaf hideout.

Villarete told the Philippine Daily Inquirer he felt insulted by the report that “attributes such a victory to American soldiers … It appears we had no capability to strike using our existing hardware.”

Villarete said: “Everyone knows how old our aircraft are, like the OV-10s. What we employed were smart pilots, four smart pilots using old aircraft.”

Please credit Air Force

Even if smart bomb technology was made available to the PAF, Villarete said “it was impossible to attach guided missiles to aging aircraft.”

“No such smart bombs, just smart pilots, please credit our Air Force,” he said.

Villarete admitted that the pilots involved in the strike underwent training with US forces here.

“And we will always place all our pilots under training with the US, we have been training them before, now and in the future,” he added.

Oplan Nemesis

The Western Mindanao Command chief, Major General Noel Coballes, also denied the AP report.

He said what the military used in the strikes were two OV-10 aircraft loaded with 500-pound bombs.

“I may have not seen how the bombs were attached but I was informed about it,” Coballes said.

He said the bombing run was the result of weeks of planning.

Two weeks before the operation “code-named Oplan Nemesis” was launched, the pilots that carried it out were trained by US forces on “how to use the said aircraft in a manner that they can deliver a successful air strike at dawn,” he said.

Coballes said part of the training module was how to effectively set off bombs to cause more damage.

Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, Sulu police chief, said that when police investigators went to the area hit by the bombs a few hours after the strikes, they saw a “clean hit.”

“The destruction was so great that I asked myself if smart bombs were not used in the attack,” Freyra said by phone.  He said the explosions left no crater “so I also suspected that a new technology was used.”

He said he was later told the bombs were set off in mid air.

Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command, said they expected issues such as this to be raised, especially by skeptics.

“Basically, what we had was a reliable asset, timely intelligence, deliberate planning and well-trained pilots,” he said.

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Julie Alipala | Inquirer Mindanao | March 23, 2012 | Article Link

Philippines using US smart bombs

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Concealed by the night sky, the two aging Philippine air force planes unleashed a surprise high-tech weapon: U.S. satellite-guided bombs that whizzed down with deadly precision toward a long-elusive terrorist suspect and two other top radicals dozing with their men in Jolo Island's jungle.

The use of smart bombs, confirmed to The Associated Press by four senior Philippine security officials, marks a new chapter in the long-running battle against an al-Qaida-linked movement in the southern Philippines, viewed by the U.S. as a key front in the global effort to keep terrorists at bay.

Successive blasts shattered a hillside rebel encampment of Abu Sayyaf, which remains one of Southeast Asia's most violent groups despite a decade of battle losses. The Vietnam War-era turboprops roared away after delivering a bull's-eye hit near mountainous Parang town around 3 a.m. on Feb. 2.

Thermal imaging from a U.S. drone, described by two of the senior officials, depicted the aftermath: Several slain gunmen lay amid a clutter of destroyed trees, huts and tents, while survivors pulled away the dead and wounded in the pitch darkness.

Although it remains unclear whether all three of the most-wanted terrorists were killed, the introduction of smart bombs reflects shifting battlefields and strategies.

The U.S. has been assisting the Philippine military since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, providing advice, training, and intelligence, including drone surveillance, but the smart bombs are the first major high-tech hardware supplied to the Philippines.

They offer a less manpower-intensive way to combat Abu Sayyaf at a time when both the Philippines and the U.S. militaries want to focus resources on tensions with China in the South China Sea. They also dovetail with a change in recent years from massive offensives to surgical, intelligence-driven strikes that target holdouts of the battered Abu Sayyaf.

The four senior officials said the strike on the Abu Sayyaf lair employed GPS-guided bombs, a previously unavailable technology acquired from the United States under a confidential military assistance project. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss those details with the media.

A Philippine military document detailing the project, a copy of which was seen by the AP, said that U.S. defense contractor Raytheon Co. was to deliver 22 kits last year to convert conventional bombs into precision-guided munitions that could be launched from the OV-10 turboprop. Accompanying that was crew training, equipment upgrades to allow the OV-10s to deploy the bombs and two test runs.

A military spokesman, Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos, said the Armed Forces of the Philippines "neither confirms nor denies the existence of such munitions citing operational security reasons. However, its pilots have been training vigorously to further improve their proficiency particularly in the precise delivery of munitions to its identified target."

Many Western, Middle Eastern and Asian countries have acquired smart bombs since they were first widely used by the U.S.-led coalition in the 1990-91 Gulf War. They have guidance kits and fins and use the U.S. GPS satellite system, laser and other technologies to zero in on targets.

Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin praised "the carefully planned precision attack" in a statement days after the strike. The well-planned assault, he said, avoided the military casualties often incurred in ground raids.

Gazmin would not respond to questions about the new bombs in an interview with The AP last week, but he said that technology from the Americans has given the military lifesaving skills such as enabling pilots to fly at night. Training with U.S. forces has focused on ways to avoid harming noncombatants and wasting resources, he said, citing last month's airstrike.

"We were able to trace that they were all together at a certain time so that was the time to hit," Gazmin said. "So we took off early morning and bombed them, delivering four bombs. We were successful."

The Philippine military announced that a top Malaysian terrorist suspect, Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, was among the dead, along with Singaporean martial arts instructor Muhamda Ali — whose rebel name is Muawiyah — and Abu Sayyaf commander Gumbahali Umbra Jumdail.

But doubts have arisen about the fates of the two foreign terrorists, and two government reports seen by the AP contend that Marwan and Muawiyah survived the airstrike with minor wounds after they heard the buzz of the OV-10s and fled.

Between nine to 15 militants were killed in the barrage but others quickly dragged away the dead, making it difficult to confirm who was killed, according to military officials.

Marwan is on the FBI list of most-wanted terrorists and has a $5 million bounty on his head. Jumdail had been a key target because he sheltered foreign radicals such as Marwan and Muawiyah and has been blamed for deadly bombings and kidnappings.

The military presumes they are dead until an investigation shows otherwise, spokesman Burgos said, though he added that huge cash rewards for informants who helped find the militants have been put on hold.

The airstrike shook the militants, according to the government reports. The precision of the attack, and that it came in the dark, told them that they were being targeted by more advanced technology. It also indicated there were government spies in their ranks and reinforced fears that harboring foreign fugitives would make them magnets for attack.

"They have become very wary of things and equipment that are being brought into their camp, suspecting these were laden with beacons that can be used to track them," Gazmin said.

Marwan and Muawiyah were lying low with gunmen in a Jolo mountain stronghold, the government reports said, but the Abu Sayyaf commander in the area, Radulan Sahiron, ordered them out.

Sahiron, who is in his 70s and the group's most senior commander, has long been wary of outsiders — unlike Jumdail, who also had been treating ill villagers as a quack doctor, providing a window for government surveillance.

The Abu Sayyaf — or Bearer of the Sword — was founded in 1991 on southern Basilan Island. With an unwieldy collective of preachers and outlaws, it vowed to wage jihad, or holy war, but lost its key leaders early in combat, sending it on a violent path of extremism and criminality.

Today, it has degenerated into a few loose factions with 381 ragtag fighters and no central leader. But the group remains resilient and is more violent, a military assessment said, citing 74 atrocities committed last year, including 17 kidnappings, 16 bombings and 14 killings and ambushes — far more than each of the five previous years.

Still its setbacks are reflected in a poster of the most-wanted terrorists printed nearly 10 years ago by the U.S. and Philippine governments. Of the 24 portraits, 19 have been killed or captured. The deaths of two — Marwan and Jumdail — are unconfirmed. Only three others remain at large.

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The Philippine Star | March 22, 2012 | Article Link

Military ready for JI, Sayyaf reprisal

MANILA, Philippines - The military is preparing for possible retaliation from terrorists in the wake of an air strike in Sulu last Thursday that left three terror leaders and 12 of their followers dead.

Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command chief Maj. Gen. Noel Coballes said their troops had been alerted about the possible repercussion of their operations against the militants, believed to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the Abu Sayyaf group (ASG).

“Actually, we’ve alerted all our troops with regard to that even before the execution of the plan. We have informed our commanders about the probable repercussion or probable retaliation of the other groups,” he said.

Coballes, however, said it remains uncertain if terrorists are really planning to stage attacks to avenge the deaths of their comrades.

“We cannot say that they will do that but we have already prepared for any probable retaliation,” he said.

AFP spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos Jr. said some militants survived last Thursday’s air raid. Some of the survivors were Malaysian members of the JI who entered the Philippines last December.

“Right now they (survivors) are disorganized. They are on the run. They are subjects of our operations,” Burgos said.

Burgos said last Thursday’s operation targeted 30 terrorists. Eight of the 30 militants are believed to be members of the JI, which has links to international terror cell al-Qaeda. 

Two Air Force OV-10 planes with night flying capability launched the attack at around 3 a.m. on Barangay Duyan Kabau in Parang town. Officials said the terrorists were caught by surprise as they may have been asleep during the attack.

Burgos said they will validate the identities of the slain terrorists through DNA tests. He, however, admitted that the military has yet to secure the bodies of the militants.

“We are still finding the bodies but we already know their location. We have to coordinate with the relatives,” he said. “(We are not) in possession (of the bodies) right now. We already have their locations. That area is an MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) territory.”

Burgos, however, maintained that they have validated the identities of 11 of the 15 slain terrorists.

“We have assets in the area so we already have the confirmation,” he said. Burgos said they expect members of the MNLF to help in coordinating with the families of the slain militants.

“We are expecting cooperation from MNLF. This is an endeavor to be done in cooperation with civilian authorities,” he said.

Blow to al-Qaeda

For AFP chief Lt. Gen. Jessie Dellosa, the al-Qaeda has suffered a major setback with the killing of the JI and ASG leaders in Parang, Sulu on Thursday.

“Their loss was a big blow to their operation. They have lost their strength,” Dellosa said, stressing that the slain terror leaders were the “center of their gravity.”

“They controlled their people. Their killings caught the terror groups off balance,” Dellosa said in Filipino.
US embassy deputy chief of mission Leslie Basset also called the military operation “a very serious blow against transnational terrorism.”

Reported killed in the pre-dawn air strike were JI leaders Zulkipli bin Abdul Hir alias Marwan, Muhamda Ali alias Muawiya and Muin Khalid, and Abu Sayyaf leader Gumbali Jumdail alias Dr. Abu Pula.

The air strike killed 12 other terrorists, the military said.

Also killed in the raid were Indonesian JI members known only as Saad and Hajan.

The slain Abu Sayyaf members include Abdulla Aziz, brother-in-law of Marwan, Ben Wagas, Haiji Tatti, close aide of Dr. Abu Pula, Muammar, Apo Mike, Abu Daud, Tuan Nas, alias Ainal, and a certain Sissan, a religious leader from Basilan.

The military said there was no doubt Abu Sayyaf and JI leaders and operatives were killed in the pre-dawn raid last Thursday.

“The assets were very credible. But I don’t want to elaborate the exact details. The target is very accurate,” Dellosa said.

Sulu 1st district Rep. Tupay Loong said there was “talk among the civilians in the area” regarding the deaths of the ASG and JI leaders, including foreigners.

He said considering the operation was done while it was still dark, the remains of the slain terror leaders might have been carried away and buried by their comrades according to Muslim beliefs.

Loong said he has yet to get word from the mayor of Parang, who is his nephew, on the extent of the military operation and its effect on the area.

“If that will address national issue as far as security is concerned, that is good… we have to congratulate the AFP,” Loong said.

Coballes said the JI is joining forces with other Islamic extremist groups to expand its presence and operations in Mindanao.

He also said they have received reports that 30 terrorists, including six foreign JI militants, arrived in Sulu last December. This led the military to hatch “Oplan Nemesis” aimed at neutralizing the militants.

“It was a high level planning which involved several options,” Coballes said. He said no ground troops took part in the operation to ensure an element of surprise as well as avoid or minimize casualties.

He said other armed groups, including the MNLF, operate around the target site.

He said OV-10 bronco planes with night flying capability took part in the raid.

Meanwhile, the US embassy’s Basset said they are leaving to the expertise of the military the task of identifying the remains of the slain terrorist leaders before deciding on the release of the bounties for the capture or neutralization of the terrorist leaders.

Marwan, considered one of the top JI leaders in Southeast Asia following the capture of Umar Patek in Pakistan, has a $5-million reward on his head.

Muawiya carries a $50,000 reward and Dr. Abu Pula, $140,000.

“We have yet to confirm the identities first and then work from there and take that step working on (the rewards),” Basset said when asked about the rewards for the neutralization of the terrorists.

Basset was in Zamboanga City to relay the gratitude of the US government and the family of the American kidnap victims – mother and son Gerfa Yeatts Lunsman and Kevin Eric – to Mayor Celso Lobregat for his role in their recovery.

Mrs. Lunsman was freed in October while her son escaped in December.
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By Alexis Romero and Roel Pareño
The Philippine Star
February 04, 2012 12:00 AM
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Philippine military in pursuit of 30 Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah members

At least 30 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members who survived a military air strike Thursday in Sulu are on the run and being pursued by government troops, the Armed Forces of the Philippine (AFP) said in a briefing Friday.
 
What remains of the groups are the target of continuing military operations, AFP spokesman Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos told reporters in Quezon City’s Camp Aguinaldo.
 
“We cant say if there are wounded among them but we are after 30 personalities in the general area,” said Burgos.
 
The AFP maintained that 15 ASG and JI leaders and members died in Thursday’s airstrikes in Mindanao’s Sulu province, noting their bodies were retrieved and buried by their comrades after the assault by two OV-10 planes.
 
Also, Burgos noted the military is now trying to coordinate with families of the slain terrorists so that the bodies can be retrieved, saying the location where the dead were buried have been pinpointed by military assets on the ground.
 
“To us, this is already confirmed, but we have to prove that through DNA testing... Based on our assets, we are already confirming it…They were brought to different locations but we will come to that. We’ll have to prove this because this requires DNA testing,” said Burgos.

“This is our effort right now: to coordinate with the local authorities for the cooperation of the relatives because in determining DNA, we have to get DNA samples,” the military spokesman also said.
 
'A blow to transnational terrorism'

In a Reuters report Friday, Leslie Basset, US deputy ambassador to the Philippines, told reporters during a visit to Mindanao the death of the militants would be a serious set-back for them.
 
"If the reports are confirmed, it marks a very serious blow against transnational terrorism," Basset said.
 
Fifteen of those slain were JI operatives Zulkipli Bin Hir (alias Marwan ) and Singaporean Muhammad Ali bin Abd Al-Rahman (alias Muawiya), and ASG senior leader Gumbahali Jumdail (alias Dr. Abu), the military said Thursday.
 
Marwan was identified as a Malaysian bomb-making expert, and Mauiyah as a former member of the Singaporean military with the rank of major. The United States had put up a $50,000 reward for his capture.
 
But Singapore's Ministry of Defense said Al-Rahman was not a former major nor had he been a regular member of the armed forces, Reuters noted in its report.
 
One of the fatalities, a certain Jumong — said to be a Malaysian Jemaah Islamiyah operative — is among six JI operatives who entered the Philippines last Dec. 30, Burgos said during Friday’s briefing.
 
The seven other fatalities, Burgos also said were Abu Sayyaf members Moammar Jumdail (alias Ting and son of Dr. Abu), Tati Jamhali, a certain alias Leong, alias Teng, alias Muin, Tuan Nash LIpae, and one Julpe.
 
Four others remain unidentified, their group affiliations unknown, Burgos noted.
 
The JI and ASG operatives were identified based on intelligence supplied by informants. “Its an A1. We cannot divulge all the other information because its operational... We know the locations," the military spokesperson said.
 
"On the part of Marwan, the mother of Marwan is already getting in touch with the Malaysian authorities… with our AFP authorities, regarding the retrieval of the body of Marwan,” he said of the Malaysian bomb expert.
 
Prepared for retaliation
 
According to Reuters, the Philippine military stepped up security on Friday in expectation of revenge attacks by Muslim rebels.
 
JI is a Southeast Asian group behind the 2005 bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.
 
The air strike on Sulu island was planned after the military got reports that 30 militants, including some JI members, had arrived there in December.
 
"We have already prepared for any probable retaliation," Major General Noel Coballes, head of the Army's Western Mindanao command, told reporters.
 
"We have alerted our units," he said. "They have just raised their security level, they intensified a little the measures they normally have in place."
 
Remote, Muslim parts of the southern Philippines have become a haven for militants from around the region who have found shelter with Philippine Muslim rebels who have been battling the government of the Christian-majority country for decades.
 
Southern Philippines is a focus of the US-led international campaign against militancy, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and several hundred US soldiers are in the region helping train Philippine forces.
 
Philippine officials also denied media reports that US forces had used a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft to help plan the air strike.
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With Reuters/VS, GMA News
GMA News Online
February 3, 2012 8:57pm
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Military cannot find terror leaders’ bodies in Abu strike

Are they or aren’t they dead?

Even as the military has stepped up security in anticipation of retaliatory attacks by the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebel groups after an air strike on a remote terrorist camp in Sulu killed 15 al-Qaida-linked extremists on Thursday, authorities are considering exhuming some bodies to prove the identities of the dead terrorist leaders.

The Armed Forces said among those killed in the predawn strike in Parang, Sulu, were at least three of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorist leaders—Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, a top leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network; Abu Sayyaf leader Umbra Jumdail, aka Doc Abu or Abu Pula; and a Singaporean JI leader Abdullah Ali, alias Mauwiya.

Military spokesperson Col. Arnulfo Burgos on Friday said “no bodies have been retrieved right now.”

Cooperation from MILF

But he said the military knew the location of the graves which was in an area of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“We are expecting cooperation from the MILF,” Burgos said.

“There is an effort to coordinate with local authorities for the cooperation of the relatives because we have to get DNA samples,” Burgos said.

He said given the amount of the bounty going to the informants, authorities may have to exhume some of the bodies to prove the identities of the terrorist leaders.

Doc Abu had a bounty of P7.4 million put up by the government on top of a $140,000 reward offered by the US State Department for his involvement in the May 2001 kidnapping in the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan province.

Marwan, the 29th most wanted personality by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, carried a bounty of P7.4 million and $5 million for multiple counts of kidnapping. Mauwiya, a known JI contact, had a $50,000 bounty for his capture.

“We have already prepared for any probable retaliation,” Maj. Gen. Noel Coballes, commanding general of the Western Mindanao Command.

He said military units have already deployed forces to secure the “probable targets” of the terrorists.

He said even before the military launched the predawn operation on Thursday, military units were ordered to raise their security level in anticipation of revenge attacks.

“We alerted all our troops even before the execution of the plan. We (informed) our commanders of the probable repercussion or probable retaliation of other groups,” Coballes said.

Many terrorist cells

Coballes said the Abu Sayyaf has splintered into many “terrorist cells” which may be capable of staging attacks.

“They have cells in different small groups in different areas, so we cannot say that they will no longer act in their area. But with the loss of these three people, they have lost the connection to other groups, they have lost leadership,” he said.

“Definitely it’s a big loss to the terrorist organization. Marwan is considered one of the heads of the JI in Asia while Doc Abu is an icon in the Abu Sayyaf Group. They look up to him,” he added.

But a day after announcing that the top regional terrorist leader had been killed, the military on Friday said that troops on the ground were still combing the remote terrorist jungle camp that was bombed on Thursday for Marwan’s body.

Disrupting JI network

The reported killing of Marwan, a bomb-making expert and one of the United States’ most wanted terrorist suspects who had been hiding out in Mindanao since 2003, would mark a major success in disrupting the JI terrorist network blamed for some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia in recent years.

“We are still searching. Our troops are still there,” said Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City, where the bomber planes in Thursday’s strike took off.

Military officials dismissed doubts that the three top terrorist leaders had been killed even though their bodies were not recovered, saying comrades removed the dead after the strike.

Cabangbang said the military’s announcement of Marwan’s killing was based on information provided by informants. He refused to elaborate, saying it would compromise their intelligence assets.

Body obliterated?

Cabangbang suggested that the blast could have “obliterated” Marwan’s body, saying the process of verification linked to the possible disbursement of the reward money to informants will be “more tedious” and could include DNA testing.

Two security officials with knowledge of the air strike who spoke to the Associated Press also said Marwan’s body was not found, though bombs shattered the house where he was believed to have been.

One of the officials confirmed the deaths of the other two high-level leaders—Umbra Jumdail and Abdullah Ali. The other official confirmed only the death of Jumdail, also known as Abu Pula, and his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Cabangbang said the decision to announce the killings, including that of Marwan, was made by Armed Forces Chief Gen. Jessie Dellosa, after he was briefed by commanders.

“There are details that we cannot divulge because of operational security,” he said when pressed for details.

DNA testing

Interior Secretary Jesse M. Robredo on Friday said police scene of the crime operatives have taken samples from the bodies at the site of the air strike which he said would be used for DNA confirmatory testing of the identities of the three most wanted Southeast Asia terrorist leaders.

But Robredo stressed that “from the information gathered from the locals on the ground, there is reasonable certainty that the terror personalities were really the ones who were killed.”

He said crime scene specialists had some difficulty in retrieving samples. “The bodies were in such a state that it might be difficult to account for all of them,” he said.

Asked how the authorities could ascertain the body count considering the condition of the bodies, Robredo said the information had come from the locals. The names of the 12 others killed in the strike were still not available.

Robredo said he expected the police and the military to coordinate with international authorities, including those from the United States, which has a stake in counterterrorism efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Southeast Asian neighbors Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

“Terrorism is an international matter, so we will appreciate whatever assistance we will get from them,” he said.

Robredo said he still had no information on who would get the reward money offered for the capture and information on the terrorist leaders. But he believes a group of government informers will be amply rewarded once documentation is finished.

Eight more identified

The military on Friday identified eight more of the 15 slain extremists. It said one of them was the son of the slain Umbra Jumdail and another Malaysian member of the JI.

Burgos said intelligence sources said one of those slain used the alias Jumong and was one of the six Malaysian JI operatives who reportedly slipped into the country last December.

He said three remains have been identified as belonging to Moammar Jumdail alias Ting, who was reportedly the son of Umbra Jumdail, and Abu Sayyaf members Tati Jamhali and Tuan Nash Lipaetif.

Burgos said three others were also identified as Abu Sayyaf members who were known only as Leong, Teng Muin and Julpe.

Civilians killed?

The head of the Bantay Ceasefire in Sulu on Friday said some civilians and a Bangladeshi national identified only as Mastal were among those killed in the Parang air strike.

Octavio Dinampo, of the Mindanao State University in Sulu province, said the information was relayed to him by a relative of Doc Abu.

“Doc Abu was attending to a wounded patient in a makeshift clinic in Lanao Dakulah when four bombs were dropped, killing him and one Bangladesh national identified as Mastal and some civilians residing in that area,” Dinampo said.

It was not clear what the Bangladeshi was doing in Parang or who the civilians were. 

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With reports from AP, AFP and Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao

By Dona Z. Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer

3:45 am | Saturday, February 4th, 2012

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