Police launched a major assault Tuesday on a maximum-security jail taken over by al-Qaeda linked suspects, killing at least 22 inmates in a raid that began with a barrage of tear-gas canisters and bullets, officials said.
Philippines Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes said the dead included four leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group, including the two men who headed a botched escape attempt Monday that left five others dead.
"The terrorists got what was coming to them," Ignacio Bunye, press secretary for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said in a statement. "The crisis team gave them all the chances to peacefully surrender."
