A top leader of the Philippine Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom group was killed in a joint local military and police operation in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao, the military said Friday.

The top man, identified as Kurato Tapuyak alias "Anton," was killed late Thursday at a village in Buluan, Maguindanao, in a brief engagement between the authorities and the rebels, the Philippine Army headquarters said in a statement here.

Tapuyak with 17 Pentagon members were sighted at the area which for the past two weeks has been the center of military operations,the military said, adding that other rebel members were able to escape with their firearms during the brief fight.

Tapuyak, the No. 2 man in the leadership of Pentagon, was allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of three-year old Jester Horiador at a village in the southern city of Tacurong in March 2003, and the ambush of a government employee of Tacurong City in last October, which resulted in the death of two city hall employees and several other criminal incidents, the statement said.

He has a warrant of arrest for robbery with double homicide at Tacurong City, it added.

The Pentagon group, implicated in at least 50 kidnapping incidents in the southern Philippines since the 1990s, has been listed by the United States as a terrorist group which has been involved in abduction of locals and foreigners in central Mindanao.

Source: Agencies