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U.S. commandos mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria overnight, killing a senior Islamic State commander in a firefight, capturing his wife and rescuing a Yazidi woman held as a slave, the Pentagon said Saturday. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the raid, identifying the militant as Abu Sayyaf. He said no U.S. forces were killed or injured in the operation. A U.S.-led coalition has been striking Islamic State militants in Syria since last year, but this is only the second time troops have carried out a ground raid. A previous operation was aimed at rescuing Americans held hostage by the...

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Saturday that U.S. special operations forces conducted a raid in Syria that aimed to capture a senior leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and his wife. The senior leader, known as Abu Sayyaf, was killed in the overnight operation, Carter said in a statement issued Saturday morning. His wife, Umm Sayyaf, was captured. No U.S. forces were killed or injured during the operation, Carter said. Carter said Abu Sayyaf was involved in ISIS' military and financial operations. Umm Sayyaf is a suspected member of ISIS and "played an important role"...

U.S. Special Operations forces killed a senior ISIS commander during a raid intended to capture him in eastern Syria overnight Friday to Saturday, sources familiar with what happened on the ground in Syria told CNN. The ISIS commander, Abu Sayyaf, who was in charge of ISIS' oil and gas operations and directly and increasingly involved in ISIS command and control, fought capture and was killed in the raid, the sources said.

Special Action Force raids bandits’ Sulu lair By Dona Pazzibugan, Julie Alipala Philippine Daily Inquirer Posted date: September 06, 2010 MANILA, Philippines—Bouncing back from the humiliation it suffered in the hands of a lone hostage-taker in Manila, the Philippine National Police killed an Abu Sayyaf commander and two of his men in an assault on the bandits’ hideout in Sulu at the weekend. Concerned about possible retaliatory attacks by the bandit group, PNP Director General Jesus Verzosa Sunday immediately placed all police units in Mindanao on full alert. Police identified the bandit commander killed in a 15-minute gunbattle at midnight...

ZAMBOANGA- Philippine police said Monday they have captured a member of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group who joined in the abduction and beheading of Christian workers when he was 14. The suspect, Jirome Mustakin, now 22, was arrested Sunday in the southern port city of Zamboanga as he waited to board a ferry heading across the sea border to Sabah in Malaysia, police said. "Mustakin was positively identified by a witness as one of those who were involved in the kidnapping," city police chief Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo told reporters. He said Mustakin was 14 when he joined...

The al-Qaeda-linked Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels have decapitated seven hostages and sent their heads to the army in Jolo, in the southern Philippines archipelago of Sulu, the local press said on Friday quoting the military. The severed heads of six road project workers and one factory worker were delivered to two army outposts in Parang town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, Thursday. The victims, all Christians, were working on a government road construction project in the city of Parang, Jolo, when they were abducted Tuesday by rebels led by commander Albader Parad. The Philiippine army said on...

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Richard M. Mason II, an assaultman for 2nd Platoon, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, sights down range with his rocket launcher. Nicknamed the "Rocket Man," he has effectively fired 24 rockets using the Shoulder-Launched Multi-Purpose Assault Weapon or SMAW during combat ops in Ramadi. (U.S.M.C. photo by Cpl. Joseph DiGirolamo) An assault team from B Company, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, prepare to enter a possible suicide vehicle bomb workshop in Fallujah, Iraq. The Marines are searching the vacant garage after receiving intelligence that the owner might be supporting...

MANILA (AP) - About 500 Muslim rebels have withdrawn from two Mindanao strongholds to let government forces launch an offensive against another Muslim group -- the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf, a rebel spokesman said Sunday. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas, nearly 300 of whom were armed, withdrew from Talayan and Guindolongan Thursday to allow the jungle offensive to go ahead and avoid accidental clashes with government troops, rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said. The guerrillas plan to return to their camps Monday unless the military asks for an extension, Kabalu said.

ZAMBOANGA CITY — A Chinese-Filipino businesswoman kidnapped by suspected Abu Sayyaf members escaped after almost four months in captivity, the military said yesterday. Marine products trader Gertrudes Tan, 50, eluded her captors in a coastal village in Maimbung, Sulu last Monday night, said Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko, chief of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command. Kyamko said Tan drifted into the sea using a small plastic jug as float until fishermen found her at about 2:30 a.m. the following day. The fishermen brought her to the Maimbung town proper where she took a passenger jeepney that brought her to the capital...

The Philippine Star 07/12/2003 ZAMBOANGA CITY — A soldier was reportedly killed and a still undetermined number was wounded when a bomb fired by OV-10 bomber planes on Abu Sayyaf positions on an islet off this city last Thursday afternoon, missed its target and struck a military blocking force. An officer of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command, however, said a number of Abu Sayyaf members were hit in the initial airstrike on Kabugan Island at about 2:50 p.m. Kabugan is one of the islets of Eleven Islands, some 60 kilometers off this city’s Curuan district, where Abu Sayyaf members have...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Philippines deporting 11 Iraqis for suspected terror links AFX European Focus March 21, 2003 Friday MANILA The Philippines is to deport 11 Iraqis arrested for suspected links to terrorism, immigration commissioner Andrea Domingo said. Domingo said the authorities were "investigating reports that the 11 Iraqis were part of a terror network" allegedly led by an expelled Iraqi diplomat Husham Hussain linked to Muslim extremist groups in the southern Philippines.     Domingo said the 11 were arrested after "intelligence reports confirmed that terrorist groups sympathetic...