Filipino bomb expert killed by American missile in Pakistan

(Updated 11:34 p.m.) DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A Filipino bomb-making expert with suspected links to the Abu Sayyaf Group was killed by a missile fired from an American military drone earlier this month, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Drones are unarmed combat aircraft controlled from remote sites. If proved true, the incident could be evidence of enduring links between Filipino radicals and Islamic armed groups based in Pakistan. Two military intelligence officials said Thursday that Abdul Basit Usman was killed on Jan. 14 close to the Afghan border. They cited militant informers as the source of the information. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their work. Filipino officials in the Philippines and Pakistan said they had no information on the attack. The U.S. State Department's list of most-wanted terrorists identifies Usman as a bomb-making expert with links to the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf militant group and the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah network. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is fighting for an independent Islamic state in southern Philippines, has repeatedly denied that Usman is their member. It even ordered its forces to hunt down the terrorist and bring him to justice. Usman was captured in Sultan Kudarat province in 2002, but escaped in the same year. He was tagged as the suspect behind deadly bombings in the Mindanao cities of General Santos, Kidapawan and Cotabato that killed and wounded dozens of innocent civilians. According to the New York Times: The drone struck a compound on Jan. 14 in the Shaktu area of South Waziristan, along the Afghan border, in an attack that appeared to be aimed at the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud. If proved true, the presence of the Filipino, Abdul Basit Usman, provides another indication that Pakistan’s tribal areas have become a collecting point for militants from around the globe who use the areas as a refuge to link up with Al Qaeda. It also shows the close ties of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. - AP with Al Jacinto/KBK/HGS, GMANews.TV