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[av_heading heading=’ Gov’t troops after 6 Abu bandits in Bohol’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Monday, April 24, 2017
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BACOLOD City – A Philippine Army official hopes government troops capture the six remaining Abu Sayyaf bandits reportedly still in Bohol province.
Major General Jon Aying, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said they were monitoring seven bandits after the Holy Week clash with authorities.
But information they received said one of them already died in an encounter around 1 p.m. on April 22, Aying said.
The alleged leader of the Abu Sayyaf bandits who stormed Bohol two weeks ago was killed in an encounter with government troops.
The group of Joselito Melloria clashed with police and military operatives in Barangay Bacani in Clarin town at around 12:45 p.m., a news report quoted Senior Superintendent Felipe Natividad, Bohol police director, as saying.
Clarin was next to Inabanga, where soldiers clashed with the bandits on April 11.
Natividad said Melloria, a native of Bohol, yielded an M203 grenade launcher and an M16 rifle.
There was no reported casualty on the government side. Authorities were verifying the number of bandits involved in the clash.
Pursuit operations for six other Abu Sayyaf “stragglers” were ongoing as of April 22 afternoon, the report quoted Brigadier General Restituto Padilla, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as saying.
Asked if the Abu Sayyaf was working with the New People’s Army (NPA), Aying said, “That is more of hearsay than a report, and maybe that came out because Melloria is a member of the Abu Sayyaf in Bohol.”
Melloria was a former NPA member. After becoming a Muslim convert, he went to Mindanao and went back to Bohol, bringing bandits led by Abu Rami, Aying explained.
Meanwhile Aying said they aim to clear Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Capiz, and Iloilo of insurgency over the next six years.
“Our focus is to destroy and bring the NPAs back to the fold of the law,” he stressed./PN
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