2020-09-30
[BenarNews] One of five Indonesian fishermen held captive for eight months by the 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...
Group was killed during a shootout between government troops and Death Eaters in the southern Philippines, officials in both countries confirmed Wednesday.
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The hostage, identified as fishermen La Baa, was fatally struck by gunfire during a clash between soldiers from the 45th Infantry Battalion and an Abu Sayyaf unit led by Majan Sahidjuan (also known as "Apo Mike") in Patikul, a town located in a remote part of Jolo Island, on Monday, according to a police report obtained by BenarNews.
"Accordingly, one of the [five] KVs was hit during the encounter and allegedly expired due to gun shot wounds he suffered during the encounter," the report from the Sulu Provincial Police Office said, using the police term for "kidnap victims."
La Baa (32), along with boat captain Arsyad Dahlan (41), and fishermen Arizal Kastamiran (29), Riswanto Hayano, (27) and Edi Lawalopo, (53), were seized by Abu Sayyaf Death Eaters in mid-January in waters off an island in nearby Sabah, Malaysia, and taken to Jolo.
An Abu Sayyaf fighter known as Alsibar Taha (alias Urot) was also reported to have been killed during the gunbattle, the police said.
It was not immediately known if La Baa was shot by his captors while trying to escape or was hit as both sides shot it out.
The waters that separate the southern Philippines from next-door neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia have been notorious for kidnappings carried out by sea by Abu Sayyaf turbans, although the Jan. 16 abduction of La Baa and his four fellow Indonesians was the last reported case.
Since 2016, at least 54 Indonesian nationals have been targeted in 16 maritime kidnappings, including in Sabah waters, an official at the Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said earlier this year.
In 2017, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesian launched trilateral patrols aimed at preventing acts of piracy and kidnappings at sea along their common maritime boundaries.
Meanwhile elsewhere on Jolo this week, troops were also on the trail of Abu Sayyaf commander Mundi Sawadjaan, who is believed to be travelling with an Indonesian couple being groomed as jacket wallahs.
Sawadjaan is a nephew of Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, an Abu Sayyaf commander who heads the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
branch in the Philippines and is wanted for plotting a kaboom that killed 23 people at a church in Jolo town in January 2019.
In August, Philippine authorities accused the younger Sawadjaan of planning two suicide kabooms that killed 15 people near the site of last year’s church attack.
Abu Sayyaf Killed Indonesian Hostage but not by Gunshot, Philippine General Says
2020-10-02
[BenarNews] An Indonesian captive who was executed by Abu Sayyaf gunnies on southern Jolo Island was not killed by gunfire, the Philippine military said Friday, correcting its own report from a day earlier.
The body of victim La Baa bore a head wound but the cause of death was not determined during an autopsy, authorities said. The 32-year-old fisherman was among five Indonesian sailors kidnapped off eastern Malaysia’s Sabah state in January.
The man’s family identified his body on Thursday after Philippine authorities turned it over to Indonesian officials in Zamboanga city. Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said results of a post-mortem indicated that the victim had no bullet wounds.
"He was not shot as it turns out, but had sustained an injury to the head caused by a blunt object which could have possibly caused his death," Vinluan told BenarNews. "What is still correct, however, is that he was executed as his Abu Sayyaf captors fought with the military."
Troops from the 45th Infantry Battalion recovered La Baa’s remains hours after engaging in a firefight on Monday with 40 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) members and killing its sub-leader Arsibar Sawadjaan, a bomb maker and cousin of Mundi Sawadjaan, officials said. Authorities identified Mundi Sawadjaan as mastermind of twin suicide bombings that killed 15 people on Jolo on Aug. 24 and were carried out by female bombers. 
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