The military seemed surer than ever yesterday that capturing elusive Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb expert Omar Patek is at hand, even stopping short of claiming that it knows the exact whereabouts of the high-value terrorist. "There are sightings of him in Sulu, so we are working on that," Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff, told TEMPO at Camp Aguinaldo yesterday morning.
Patek, who carries million bounty for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, is being coddled by the Abu Sayyaf Group together with Dulmatin, his alleged cohort. Asked if the military could present Patek this week, Esperon replied: "We hope we can get him (Patek) but we will not promise you that this will be done within one week." Reports had surfaced recently that Patek was wounded in a clash with military elite units in Sulu last year but Esperon would not confirm their veracity. |