Fighters from Abu Sayyaf, affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group, killed eleven Filipino soldiers on Friday and injured 14, the bloodiest attack by these jihadists in a year, the Philippine military said.
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The Abu Sayyaf group, which specializes in villainous abductions, has been active for decades in the southern Philippines. It is an extremist offshoot of the Muslim separatist insurgency which has left more than 150,000 dead since the 1970s in the southern regions of this archipelago, the population of which is overwhelmingly Catholic. Friday's attack occurred on an isolated southern island.
Filipino soldiers were participating in operations against Abu Sayyaf in Sulu province when they were ambushed by fighters from that group, army chief in the region, General Cirilito Sobejana, told reporters. . The toll of this attack is the bloodiest involving Abu Sayyaf since a suicide bombing in which two suicide bombers unleashed their explosives belts in Jolo cathedral in January 2019, killing 21 people. The Philippine military has since carried out operations to free hostages held by this group.
A faction of Abu Sayyaf participated in May 2017 in the capture of the southern city of Marawi by Filipino and foreign fighters waving the IS flag. The army had reconquered it after five months of fighting. The center of the agglomeration was razed and more than a thousand people died. Most of the Philippines is under quarantine to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, which has infected nearly 6,000 people and killed 380.