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Sorry - this page has been removed. 'Most wanted' militant's DNA found at Philippines police raid scene, says FBI
(4 months later)
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. DNA tests of body matter collected at the scene of a deadly police raid in the Philippines last week have uncovered a link to one of the United States’ most wanted terrorists Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, the FBI said on Wednesday.
The DNA sample was provided to the FBI by the Philippines, and its identity is believed to have been determined through a sibling connection to bin Hir’s brother, a person familiar with the testing procedure told Reuters.
For further information, please contact: The brother, Rahmat bin Hir, is in US custody in a California prison after his arrest in 2007 for conspiracy to provide “material support to terrorists”.
The FBI had offered $5m for the arrest of bin Hir, a Malaysian member of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, which has been behind numerous bombing attacks in the Philippines.
The raid to arrest Zulkifli bin Hir and another militant went awry and 44 police commandos were killed in the clash that shattered a three-year ceasefire with Muslim rebels in the south of the country.
The FBI has said it had no prior knowledge of the raid.
The Philippine army and police have been hunting bin Hir since 2003, and efforts to arrest him were stepped up when President Benigno Aquino came to power in 2010.
Counter-terrorism officials in the Philippines say bin Hir fled to the island of Mindanao in late 2000, after the Malaysian government cracked down on Islamist militants following discovery of an al-Qaida-linked organization in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Three years ago, the military reported that bin Hir was killed in an air strike, but he surfaced again last year in a marshy area of Mindanao under the protection of a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Late this past month, after police confirmed bin Hir’s presence at Pedsandawan village on Mindanao, a plan code-named Exodus was set into motion and hundreds of police commandos descended on the wetlands.
Noli Talino, acting commander of the Special Action Force commandos, said the 84th Special Action Force company sneaked into the village under cover of darkness and killed bin Hir.
In a eulogy on 30 January for the commandos who died in the raid, Talino said their leader, Getulio Napenas, was at his tactical command post 3km (1.8 miles) away when he got a text message: “Mike one, Bingo,” meaning that bin Hir had been killed.