Abu Sayyaf leader confirmed dead

The Associated Press reports that DNA tests confirmed the death of an FBI-most-wanted terrorist, Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani, the head of the Philippines-based terrorist organization believed to have long-standing links with al Qaeda.

Janjalani was killed in a battle with Philippines forces in September.

ASG was behind the 2004 ferry bombing in the Philippines that killed 116 people. The group has also carried out kidnappings and hostage-taking, including the taking of an American missionary couple and tourist who was beheaded.

Osama bin Laden is thought to have provided the group’s $5 million seed money. Bin Laden had met the group's founding leader, Janjalani's elder brother, when the two men fought together against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The group's mission is to establish a pan-Islamic state spanning southeast Asia and including parts of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and Thailand.

In the mid-1990s Ramzi Yousef, the lead 1993 World Trade Center bomber, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, worked with the ASG when they bombed Philippines Air Flight 434 in which a Japanese passenger was killed. This was supposed to be a test-run for Operation Bojinka, their plot to simultaneously explode a dozen trans-Pacific commercial airliners in mid-flight.

ASG is also linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian group that carried out the Bali bombings in 2002.

The group is thought to have 200-400 core supporters. The Philippines also announced that they had killed Janjalani’s possible successor in a battle last Tuesday.