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A top al-Qaida-linked militant, long wanted by US and Philippine authorities for deadly terror attacks, has been killed in a clash with troops in a major blow to his brutal rebel group, the military said Wednesday.

Jainal Antel Sali Jr, popularly known as Abu Sulaiman and a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group was fatally shot on Tuesday in a fierce gun-battle with army special forces on the mountainous southern island of Sulu, military chief General Hermogenes Esperon said.

Esperon warned that Sulaiman's death could spark retaliatory attacks, but that the army stood ready.

Esperon said Sulaiman had plotted most of Abu Sayyaf's major kidnappings and bombings targeting Americans and other foreigners.

"We have resolved that this group and their major commanders must be finished off, that this notorious group should see its end", Esperon told a news conference.

Esperon displayed a picture of the slain militant then triumphantly stood up to scribble an 'X' across Sulaiman's face on a US poster of most-wanted terror suspects.

US Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop congratulated the Philippine Government, describing Sulaiman's killing as "a major success."

Buddy Recio, a travel magazine publisher who was held hostage along with his wife and son by the Abu Sayyaf before being freed a week later in 2001, said Sulaiman had planned many atrocities and provided an ideological inspiration to rebel recruits.

"His death means the loss of one master planner for the Abu Sayyaf," Recio said. "I remember we couldn't have small talk with that guy. It's always about business or their ideology."

Sulaiman is the highest-ranking Abu Sayyaf commander to killed by US-backed troops, who have been hunting him for years for his alleged involvement in major bomb attacks and mass kidnappings for ransom, he said. Washington had offered up to US$5 million for his capture.

Sulu villagers, a rebel informant and one of the wives of the slain rebel have identified his body after the clash between the army's 8th Special Forces Company and around 60 Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Sulu's Bud Daho mountain, about 950 kilometers south of Manila, Esperon said.

Sulaiman allegedly masterminded a February 2004 bombing that triggered a fire aboard Superferry 14, killing 116 people in Southeast Asia's second-worst terror attack. Sulaiman, who has often acted as an Abu Sayyaf spokesman, claimed responsibility.

He also participated in a bomb attack that killed a US serviceman near an army camp in southern Zamboanga City in October 2002, he said.

Sulaiman also planned the kidnapping of three Americans and Filipino tourists from the southwestern island of Palawan in 2001, according to the military.

One of the Americans, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded. His fellow hostage, American missionary Gracia Burnham was wounded and rescued by army commandos but her husband, Martin, was killed during the operation that ended their year-long jungle captivity.

The kidnappings of the Americans prompted Philippine authorities to allow US troops to deploy in the southern Mindanao region to train and arm Filipino soldiers working to wipe out the resilient Abu Sayyaf.

Army forces raided Sulaiman's camp Tuesday, sparking a three-hour gunbattle through dense forests, leaving two soldiers wounded and apparently killing Sulaiman, said regional army spokesman Major Eugene Batara.

(China Daily via agencies January 18, 2007)