The leader of the bandit Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has been killed by military forces in an encounter in Sumisip, Basilan on Friday, March 25.
Colonel Jorry Baclor, chief of the public affairs office of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), identified the fatality as Radzmil Jannatul, an ASG sub-leader in Basilan and the pinpointed successor of the late ASG commander Furuji Indama.
Baclor said that operating troops of the 7th Scout Ranger Company, 5th Scout Ranger Battalion of the First Scout Ranger Regiment were conducting security operations when they encountered an undetermined number of ASG bandits under the command of Jannatul in Barangay Baiwas.
"After a 15-minute firefight, the ASG left one of their dead members while no casualty was reported on the AFP side," Baclor said.
According to the military official, Jannatul was the one who replaced Indama, the last Basilan-based senior official of the ASG, when he was killed in a military operation in October 2020.
"The death of Jannatul is another big score for the AFP against the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group," Baclor said.
"This is a significant accomplishment towards the attainment of genuine and lasting peace and development in the whole province of Basilan," he added.
Baclor said the AFP is now hunting down the two remaining ASG sub-leaders in Basilan whom he did not identify.