20 Soldiers Wounded by Abu SaYaF

The military said 3 soldiers sustained gunshot wounds and 17 others sustained shrapnel wounds.
Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) public affairs office chief, said the clash occurred in Barangay Silangkum in Tipo-Tipo town at around 2 a.m.

Zagala said around 200 soldiers from the Philippine Army's 104th Infantry Brigade and Joint Special Operations Group were conducting a strike operation to apprehend ASG commander Furuji Indama when the firefight erupted.

He said Indama is the Abu Sayyaf commander behind the series of attacks at a rubber plantation in Maluso town and several kidnapping incidents in the region.

''This is a deliberate operation on the presence of ASG leader Furuji Indama. It's a strike operation because there was information of his whereabouts,'' Zagala told ANC.

"On the ASG side, we still have to determine [if they were wounded],'' he said.
An ABS-CBN News source said a clash between the Abu Sayyaf bandits and government troops also broke out in Al-Barka town at around 7 a.m.

Government soldiers were deployed Friday morning to Al-Barka to act on a complaint by contractors working on a circumferential road of Abu Sayyaf bandits' extortion activities.
The Western Mindanao Command confirmed that following the encounter with government troops, the bandits led by Indama re-grouped in Baguindan and occupied the Baguindan Elementary School. It was not clear whether civilians were trapped in the school.

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