After 44 Philippine commandos die, is terrorist Marwan really dead?

The mobile-phone message of the Filipino police commandos to their base was triumphant: "Mike 1 bingo," a code meaning they had killed one of Southeast Asia's most wanted terror suspects, Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan.

But the euphoria among police generals monitoring the January 25 dawn assault in a southern swampland was brief.

As daybreak lifted their night cover, the young commandos came under intense rebel fire, trapped in the marshy fringes of a Muslim rebel stronghold about 2-3km from where backup police forces waited.

Unable to carry Marwan's body, one of the commandos chopped off his finger and another took pictures as proof of his death, police officials said.

Another policeman kept frantically calling for reinforcements by radio, but standby forces failed to penetrate the battle scenes and the pleas for help vanished.

"There was radio silence, a very long silence," Chief Superintendent Noli Talino, who helped oversee the operation, said during Friday's eulogy.