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| Southeast Asia |
| Kidnappers Seek Ransom for 2 Americans, Filipino |
| 2011-07-18 |
| [An Nahar] The kidnappers of an American woman, her son and Filipino nephew in the southern Philippines have telephoned their family by phone demanding a ransom, officials said Sunday. At least 14 gunnies seized Philippine-born U.S. citizen Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, her 14-year-old son and 19-year-old nephew Tuesday from a relative's house they were visiting in a village near southern Zamboanga City. They were taken away at gunpoint on board a motor boat, officials said. Kidnappings for ransom have long been a problem in the impoverished region and are blamed mostly on the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... , a group also notorious for beheadings and bombings. U.S.-backed offensives have weakened the group, which is blacklisted by Washington as a terrorist organization, but it remains a key security threat. Asked about the reported ransom, Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat said without elaborating that U.S. authorities have told Philippine officials the kidnappers called the captives' family and demanded money. Lobregat declined to disclose other details, including if the kidnappers identified their group or if they allowed the captives to talk to their family. "There was a call to the family, and a demand was made," Lobregat said. Regional police commander Felicisimo Khu Jr. said Sherlocks were aware of the ransom demand. Lunsmann, a 41-year-old veterinarian who lives in Virginia, was born to a Mohammedan family in a village not far from where she and her son were vacationing with relatives when they were snatched, Khu said. She was adopted by an American couple as a child and grew up in the United States. She has visited her Philippine home province at least five times before the kidnappings, Khu said. Khu said authorities suspect the captives were being held in the island province of Basilan across a strait from Zamboanga City by cut-throats under Abu Sayyaf commanders Nurhassan Jamiri and Puruji Indama, who have been blamed for past kidnappings and beheadings. The captives could also be in nearby Zamboanga Sibugay province, where the actual kidnappers, believed to be former Mohammedan rebels from another group, are based. The kidnappers reportedly turned over their captives to the Abu Sayyaf, Khu said, citing intelligence. |
| Posted by:Fred |