Army: USAID project site attacked by gunmen
ISABELA, Basilan - Gunmen attacked workers at a United States-funded road project in Basilan and injured a construction worker, an army official said Saturday.
The gunmen shot at a small group of construction workers in a remote village on Basilan at daybreak, said Army Colonel Ricardo Visaya, commander of military forces based on the island.
"It's a project funded by USAID," Visaya told AFP, referring to the US Agency for International Development, which has an extensive array of development projects on the impoverished island wracked by insurgency.
Asked if he suspected the attackers to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist group that has been blamed for many of the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines, Visaya said only that the gunmen are "extortionists".
The project will continue despite the attack, he added.
US Special Forces troops are training Filipino forces in Basilan and nearby southern islands, but Visaya and the US military denied a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper that US soldiers were among those attacked.
"We have no forces in that area," Lieutenant-Commander Drew Desany, a US Special Forces officer based in Basilan told AFP.
The shooting occurred more than a week after the Philippine military claimed it had killed three of Southeast Asia's most-wanted terror suspects in a US-backed air raid in the adjacent Sulu island group.
Among those reported by the military to have been killed in the raid was Malaysian Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, alias Marwan of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government.
Also reported killed were Singaporean Jemaah Islamiyah leader Mohammad Ali, alias Muawiyah, and Filipino militant Abu Pula, also known as Doctor Abu or Umbra Jumdail, one of the core leaders of the Abu Sayyaf. — Agence France Presse
The gunmen shot at a small group of construction workers in a remote village on Basilan at daybreak, said Army Colonel Ricardo Visaya, commander of military forces based on the island.
"It's a project funded by USAID," Visaya told AFP, referring to the US Agency for International Development, which has an extensive array of development projects on the impoverished island wracked by insurgency.
Asked if he suspected the attackers to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist group that has been blamed for many of the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines, Visaya said only that the gunmen are "extortionists".
The project will continue despite the attack, he added.
US Special Forces troops are training Filipino forces in Basilan and nearby southern islands, but Visaya and the US military denied a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper that US soldiers were among those attacked.
"We have no forces in that area," Lieutenant-Commander Drew Desany, a US Special Forces officer based in Basilan told AFP.
The shooting occurred more than a week after the Philippine military claimed it had killed three of Southeast Asia's most-wanted terror suspects in a US-backed air raid in the adjacent Sulu island group.
Among those reported by the military to have been killed in the raid was Malaysian Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, alias Marwan of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government.
Also reported killed were Singaporean Jemaah Islamiyah leader Mohammad Ali, alias Muawiyah, and Filipino militant Abu Pula, also known as Doctor Abu or Umbra Jumdail, one of the core leaders of the Abu Sayyaf. — Agence France Presse
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