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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippines: Kidnapped teacher beheaded by militants |
| 2009-11-11 |
| [ADN Kronos] Police in the southern Philippines have found the severed head of a school teacher who was abducted by Islamist militants nearly a month ago. Gabriel Canizares was abducted by Abu Sayyaf militants three weeks ago and his body is still missing. Canizares was travelling with colleagues on the southern island of Jolo when he was kidnapped by the Al-Qaeda linked militants and his head was left at a petrol station in Sulu province early Monday, a ranking military official said. According to GMA TV news, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Victor Ibrado condemned the act as "dastardly and inhuman," while defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said the incident illustrated the challenge for the people in Sulu in fighting terrorism. The militants had demanded a ransom of 42,000 dollars for Canizares, but his family had refused to pay the amount. Education secretary Jesli Lapus expressed shock at the teacher's killing, saying six other teachers who had been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf earlier this year had all been released. She said president Gloria Arroyo had ordered "punitive action" to "put an end to the Abu Sayyaf group's heinous and inhumane atrocities". "The people of Jolo are condemning this dastardly act," Jolo municipal mayor Hussin Amin said in a television interview aired in Manila. The beheading occurred only three days before a visit to Manila by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for many of the country's terrorist attacks, including the firebombing of a ferry in Manila Bay that claimed more than 100 lives in 2005 and the abduction of American tourists in 2001. A land mine explosion targeted a military convoy carrying American troops on 29 September killed two soldiers - the first US military deaths in the southern Philippines in seven years. |
| Posted by:Fred |