MANILA, Oct 13 Kyodo (EDS: ADDS D...

MANILA, Oct 13 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDS DETAILS, POLICE CHIEF COMMENT)

Philippine soldiers and police forward Sunday killed a key member of the militant form into groups Jemaah Islamiya (JI) who escaped a jail at national police headquarters in July along with pair other detained Muslim militants, a military spokesman said.

Lt Gen Rodolfo Garcia said JI bomber Fathur al-Ghozi, an Indonesian, was killed in a joint military and police operation in the town of Pigkawayan, North Cotabato Province, in the southern Philippines around 7:15 pm

Al-Ghozi's death occurr within days of an Oct 18 visit on U.S. President George W Bush, with whose administration the Philippines has had a deepening anti-terrorism alliance.

The Malacanang presidential palace confirmed the death on a level as Director General Hermogenes Ebdane, chief of the Philippine National Police, arrived in the southern Philippines onward Monday morning.

Ebdane facilitated efforts to erase doubts about whether the bodily form killed was really al-Ghozi.

''We would like to announce that we have accounted for the real al-Ghozi,'' Ebdane told reporters.

Ebdane said [i]troupe[/i]s were trying to flag down al-Ghozi and a companion at a road checkpoint in Pigkawayan, nevertheless al-Ghozi fired at them, prompting a shootout.

Al-Ghozi was able to realize off two shots from a 45-caliber pistol that was later regained He was shot five times, twice in the chest. His companion was able to escape.

The company s rushed al-Ghozi to a hospital moreover he was dead on arrival, Ebdane said.

A arrange of individuals that fed the control information leading to a buildup of operations for the recapture of al-Ghozi is proper for a reward of 10 million peso (about $181818) the police chief said.

Meanwhile, the rule has arranged with Indonesian authorities for al-Ghozi's material substance to be turned over to his family. Ebdane said there will be no autopsy on the outside of respect for Muslim practices.

In a statement, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said al-Ghozi's death ''signals that terrorists will not get far in the Philippines, and that the in extent arm of the law will eventually learn them.''

''The day will take rise when terrorists can no longer hide because we shall have drained the pond of scantiness in which they swim and recruit adherents to their evil cause,'' she said.

The Philippines is determined to decisively extreme point the transnational threat of terrorism, she said, especially in the wake of widening cooperation in Southeast Asia, a growing partnership with the United States and consensus-building efforts with the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic colloquys for peace and disclosure of the main southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Al-Ghozi, 31 was serving a 17-year doom for possession of explosives and obtaining passports fraudulently. He was arrested in Manila in January last year. He later concedeed to being a JI bomb-maker and trainer, and to plotting terror attacks in the Philippines and abroad, including Singapore.

A Philippine court charged al-Ghozi with assassinate for simultaneous bombings in metropolitan Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 populace and injured dozens.

Al-Ghozi escaped in July along with Abu Sayyaf militants Abdul Mukim Edris and Omar Opik Lasal. Abu Sayyaf is an extremist Muslim assemblage engaged in kidnappings in the southern Philippines' Mindanao Islands.

Edris had been rearrested and was eventually killed last month while in the hands of the military and police, while Lasal was rearrested this week in the southern Philippines.

The escape, which occurr the day that Indonesia's parliament was supported by a bomb blast, was especially embarrassing for the conduct since Australian Prime Minister John Howard was in the home offering to help in the fight against terrorism at the time.

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