KUALA LUMPUR, 3 FEBRUARY, 2012: Malaysian Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader Zulkifli Abdul Hir, who is one of the top militant on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, was killed in an air strike in the Philippines.

Regional military commander Maj Gen Noel Coballes told news agencies that ground troops had confirmed the death of Zulkifli (pic), famously known as Marwan, after a raid on a military stronghold in Jolo island, in the Mindanao region.

Fifteen militants were killed in the attack at about 3am yesterday, including fellow JI militant Mohammad Ali @ Muawiyah and Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Pula.

Marwan, an engineer trained in the United States, was born in Muar, Johor, in 1966.

He was believed to be the head of the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia terrorist organization and one of the leaders of JI, a group blamed for some of Southeast Asia's deadliest terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings, where more than 200 people were killed.

According to reports, Marwan had been in the Philippines since August 2003 where he is believed to have conducted bomb-making training for the Abu Sayyaf Group.

AFP quoted the Philippine army as saying that Marwan, who had a US$5mil (RM15mil) FBI bounty on his head, was among three of Southeast Asia's most-wanted militants killed in the attack.

It said that the Philippine army, aided by US advisers, launched the bombing raid on a remote southern island in which 15 members of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah organisations died, military chiefs said.

“This is a big victory and it will have a very big impact on the capability of the terrorists,” Maj Gen Coballes said.

The US State Department's website said only four other people in the world had higher bounties for their capture than Zulkifli, and one of them is al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Filipino Abu Pula was also known as Dr Abu while Singaporean Muawiyah was another top figure in JI.

The Philippine military said it also killed Uma Jumdail, a core leader of Abu Sayyaf. Although no Philippine troops were on the ground, the military said it was sure that the three had been killed, based on reports from their intelligence sources.

Muawiyah and Marwan were believed to have been hiding out at Abu Sayyaf bases on remote, jungle in southern Philippine islands since 2003, according to the Philippine military and the US State Department website.