The highest ranking leader of the Abu Sayyaf, Khadaffy Janjalani, was killed in a battle with government troops in the southern island of Basilan, President Gloria Arroyo announced Saturday.
"The supreme leader of the terrorists -- Khadaffy Janjalani -- was killed by security forces," Arroyo said.
She said his death dealt a heavy blow to the Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebels, who had stormed a hospital and a church and took 200 people captive in Lamitan town in Basilan.
Arroyo said Janjalani was killed in the town of Tuburan near Lamitan.
Another Abu Sayyaf leader, Abu Sabaya, who also doubles as the group's spokesman, was wounded, she said.
Fighting broke out Friday in Tuburan, where scores of Abu Sayyaf gunmen holding three Americans and 17 Filipino hostages they seized from a upmarket beach resort in Palawan fled from a military pursuit.
The gunmen escaped to nearby Lamitan at dawn Saturday, storming a church and a hospital and holding up to 200 new hostages, including a priest and hospital staff.
News of the death of Janjalani and the wounding of Sabaya were reported earlier Saturday by radio stations but the military said they could not confirm the reports until they saw the rebel leader's body.
But in her television address, Arroyo said: "We are confirming this."
Janjalani is the brother of Abdurajak Janjalani, a firebrand Muslim preacher who founded the Abu Sayyaf in the early 1990s.
After Abdurajak was killed in 1998, he was succeeded by his brother, named after the Libyan leader Moamer Khadaffy, whose country is believed to have trained several Abu Sayyaf gunmen.
"With his death, the bandits have lost a pillar," a grim-looking Arroyo said.
"The fighting continues and we will not stop until all the hostages are freed," the president said. "We will annihilate the bandits if they will not surrender at the earliest possible time."
Arroyo said the Abu Sayyaf were now "desperate" after troops sealed off all exit points in Lamitan.
"To the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, you have nowhere to run. So it is best that you free your hostages and surrender. You are only worth one bullet," Arroyo said -- MANILA, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
