Weeks of watching ended in a short firefight on a Wednesday night in Basilan. Philippine police, working with military intelligence agents, shot dead Nawapi Abdulsaid in the remote coastal town of Hadji Mohammad Ajul, security officials said. Police officials announced it on Friday.
Abdulsaid, who went by the nom de guerre Khatan, belonged to Abu Sayyaf. He was among several of the group’s militants who pledged themselves to the Islamic State group.
What the police report says
A confidential police report ties him to at least 15 beheadings in Basilan. Ten of the victims were Philippine marines killed in Al-Barka town in 2007. Two others were Vietnamese sailors, part of a group of six taken from a passing cargo ship and murdered near Sumisip town in 2016.
The report also names him in attacks on government forces in 2022. Then came a bombing in November that left two pro-government militiamen dead and two more wounded.
Police opened surveillance on him in February. They could not simply go in and arrest him, according to the report, because of the “hostile nature” of the area where he stayed. That is where he was eventually killed.
A weakened but active group
Both Washington and Manila have blacklisted Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization. Ransom kidnappings, beheadings and bombings built its reputation. Battlefield losses, surrenders and infighting have cut it down to a small force, yet it still threatens security in the southern Philippines, home to the country’s minority Muslims in a mostly Roman Catholic nation.
Another clash earlier in the week
On Monday, the military said, troops in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town, in Maguindanao del Sur province, killed the leader of a different Muslim rebel group along with 11 of his men. The fighting took place in marshland. The dead were blamed for earlier bombings and extortion. Seven soldiers were wounded in the clash with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
That group and Abu Sayyaf are two of the few small armed bands still pursuing a separatist uprising. The biggest, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, struck a peace pact with the government in 2014, ending much of decades of sporadic fighting. Its commanders have since become parliamentarians and administrators of a five-province Muslim autonomous region, and they are getting ready for a regular election.
Sources
- Philippine police kill an Abu Sayyaf militant implicated in 15 beheadings and other atrocities
- Philippine Authorities Kill Notorious Abu Sayyaf Militant Khatan, Linked to Multiple Beheadings and Attacks – Saudi Press
