THE military will deploy more troops to Sulu and Basilan to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf once and for all, Western Mindanao Command spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan said Thursday.
He announced the deployment of more troops after the Abu Sayyaf decapitated a kidnap victim in Sulu.
He said the extra troops would come from Luzon, the Visayas and from the battalions now not engaged due to the ceasefire declared by the New People’s Army, Tan said.
He declined to say exactly how many more troops will be deployed but said the extra troops would be handy in searching the forested areas where the group’s members were hiding.
There are now 5,000 soldiers in Sulu and another 2,500 in Basilan.
Tan made his statement even as President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday ordered the Armed Forces to destroy the Abu Sayyaf after they decapitated Patrick Jhames Almodavar.
“My order to the Police and to the Armed Forces is to seek them out and destroy them,” Duterte said.
Tan said Almodavar’s head was recovered by local police in Kadjatan village in Indanan, Sulu.
He said the head was wrapped in a plastic bag and was left by three alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf aboard a motorcycle. Almodavar was abducted on July 16 in Asturias village in Jolo.
Duterte said the family of a businesswoman who was kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf along with her husband and son earlier this month paid P50 million for their freedom. With John Paolo Bencito and Florante S. Solmerin
