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Three Abu Sayyaf rebels slain, seven captured
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines : Government troops killed three Abu Sayyaf kidnappers and arrested seven others in a major anti-terrorist operation in the southern Philippines, the military said.
The suspects holed up on the island of Umapoy were allegedly involved in the abduction of a group of Indonesian, Filipino and Malaysian resort workers from the nearby Malaysian state of Sabah last year. Marines and Navy Special Forces units raided the island, on the southeast edge of the Tawi-Tawi group near the sea border with Sabah on Tuesday following a tip-off that the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers had hid their hostages there for a time, task force commander Navy Captain Feliciano Angue said Wednesday.
Navy gunboats and attack helicopters sank two motorboats belonging to fleeing gunmen and intercepted at least one other vessel, he told reporters. The raiders recovered the bodies of three suspected Abu Sayyaf kidnappers and arrested seven others. The rest of the 50-odd group escaped at sea but pursuit operations are continuing, Angue said.
The Abu Sayyaf, allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda network of Islamic militants, is deemed a "foreign terrorist organization" by the United States. The group has mounted spectacular kidnappings of American and European tourists and missionaries in the past. The Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Umapoy "are all implicated in the kidnapping of the Borneo hostages," Angue told reporters. He said some of the group had relocated to Umapoy after having been displaced by military operations on their traditional holdouts on the islands of Jolo and Basilan. The gunmen forcibly displaced the fishermen who lived on houses on stilts on the coast of the tiny island, he said. "They kept their six hostages here for a time."
The hostages -- three Indonesians, two Filipinos and a Malaysian -- were snatched from a resort on the Malaysian section of Borneo island in November. The Indonesian captives and a Filipino were released Monday. The freed hostages told the Malaysian authorities one of the hostages had died in captivity while another escaped late last year. Angue said the naval operation was coordinated with the Malaysian authorities, who arrayed their navy vessels along the sea border just 10 nautical miles away to prevent the kidnappers escaping to Malaysia.
Meanwhile, a Filipino soldier was killed and five others were injured in a grenade blast inside an army base in this southern port city before dawn Tuesday, the military said. The authorities are investigating the cause of the blast, which occurred in the barracks of the First Scout Ranger Regiment, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Renoir Pascua.
Posted by: Steve 2004-05-26 |
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