[BenarNews] The Philippine army said it killed four Abu Sayyaf militants in a preemptive strike on Wednesday amid suspicions they could launch attacks similar to those that hit Sri Lanka on Easter.The four Abu Sayyaf militants were killed during an operation on Basilan. The strike targeted followers of Abu Sayyaf commander Furuji Indama, whose group worked last year with the Islamic State in plotting and carrying out a car-bomb attack that killed 11 people on Basilan.
“The focused military operation aimed at hitting Indama’s group in the hinterlands of Gipitan,” in the remote Ungkaya Pukan township of Basilan, said military spokesman Gerry Besana in nearby Zamboanga.
Wednesday’s strike, military officials said, was aimed at preventing the group from carrying out a “sympathy attack” after coordinated suicide bombings claimed by IS killed nearly 360 people in three Sri Lankan cities.
On Monday, police said they foiled a bomb attack after they recovered two improvised bombs left outside a Catholic chapel in Lambayong, a town in Sultan Kuradat province. Police chief Herman Luna said the bombs were fashioned from an 81-mm mortars and were discovered by church workers who alerted the police bomb squad. .
Luna blamed the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a group that has pledged allegiance to IS, as being behind the attempted bomb plot. He said, "It could have been a powerful explosion had the IED exploded."