[Inquirer] The Philippine military on Monday discredited a police claim that a Malaysian militant had succeeded slain Abu Sayyaf...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
leader Isnilon Hapilon as the Islamic State's “emir” in southeast Asia.
In a news conference on Monday morning, PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa identified the Malaysian as “drone operator” Amin Baco. Dela Rosa presented to reporters arrested Indonesian militant Muhammad Ilham Syahputra, according to whom, he said, Baco was not only leading the remaining Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf terrorists in Marawi but also had taken over as “emir."
Experts say Baco was trained under Malaysian militant Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, who was killed in 2015. Baco was reported to have been killed in Marawi but Reuters, citing intelligence sources, reported that he had fled. Dela Rosa said it was “possible” but “unconfirmed” that Baco had slipped out of Marawi.
But in a statement issued on Monday afternoon, Maj. Gen. Restituto Padilla Jr., spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said Baco was believed to be among the terrorists killed in Marawi. The statement said, "Baco’s remains [are] now the subject of an ongoing aggressive search. The AFP strongly believes that the [Maute group] is now leaderless and without direction."
Padilla maintained that only “clearing operations” were going on in Marawi to get the last IS-inspired terrorists who were “fighting for survival” and hiding “in the hope of escaping.”
Padilla was quoting Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr., chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, who in a separate interview with reporters on Monday said Baco was most likely dead.
In an interview with reporters at AFP headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana did not confirm or deny Dela Rosa’s claim but appeared to play it down. Lorenzana said that even if Baco was now the leader of the stragglers in Marawi, “I think he can no longer amass that number of troops that [Hapilon] can bring to Marawi.”
Troops killed nine of the stragglers in a firefight on Sunday, according to Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., deputy commander of the military forces in Marawi. Brawner said among those killed was Ibrahim Maute, alias Abu Jamil, a cousin of the Maute brothers who led the siege of Marawi in alliance with Hapilon’s faction of the Abu Sayyaf and a number of foreign fighters.