[An Nahar] An Indian man beat feet from al-Qaeda-linked faceless myrmidons Friday after being held captive in the southern Philippines for nearly 14 months.Bijo Kolara Veetil escaped before dawn Friday as his 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...
captors were preparing breakfast, said Sulu provincial police chief Antonio Freyra.
A heavily bearded Veetil, 37, later told news hounds at a hospital that after he slipped out of the thugs' encampment in the hinterlands of Patikul township, a villager brought him to a provincial official, who handed him to police. He was then taken to the hospital.
Veetil, who worked as an operations manager for a garment company in Kuwait, said he was kidnapped in June 2011 while visiting his wife's family in Patikul.
The kidnappers demanded about 300,000 pesos ($7,100) in ransom, but his family refused to pay. He said he wasn't harmed because he is a Moslem.