Philippine troops eye Robot, other Muslim extremists

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines -- Philippine armed forces, fresh from a clash believed to have killed one leader of a Muslim extremist group, have new marching orders: "Get the others."

Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, chief of the southern Philippines forces, said Sunday that the military was now targeting Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and another senior leader, Ghalib Andang, known as Commander Robot.

"The marching orders of the president is get the others. The priority is Janjalani and Robot," Carolina said. He said "Operation Daylight" also includes rescuing three Indonesians seized from a tugboat last Monday by suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels and taken to Jolo island where Robot operates. The island is about 590 miles south of Manila.

Khaddafy is the brother of Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, who founded the al-Qaida-linked group in the early 1990s and was killed in a police raid in 1998. Robot led the abduction of 21 people, including Western tourists, from a Malaysian resort in April 2000. All but one were released in exchange for large ransoms.

Another Abu Sayyaf leader, Abu Sabaya, was believed to have been killed with two of his men in a gunbattle Friday off Mindanao island. Sabaya spearheaded the kidnapping last year of 17 Filipinos and three Americans -- missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kan., and Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif.

Abu Sayyaf later abducted dozens more. Some, including Sobero, were killed; others escaped and the rest were freed, reportedly for large ransoms.

The kidnappings helped trigger the deployment of about 1,000 U.S. troops to the southern Philippines for a counterterrorism training exercise with Philippine soldiers in the first expansion of the American war on terrorism outside Afghanistan.