Indonesian hostages rescued from Abu Sayyaf bandits
Government forces rescued two of three Indonesian hostages Sunday after a gun battle with their captors from the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf, a regional military commander said.
A soldier and a militant were killed in two successive firefights at dawn that allowed troops to rescue the two Indonesian fishermen in the mountainous hinterlands off Panamao town in Sulu province, said Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana.
Backed by rocket-firing helicopters, troops were pursuing the militants in an effort to rescue the third hostage, he told reporters.
“During the firefights, the two victims managed to scamper away [from the militants] and we were able to rescue them,” Sobejana said.
“We have cordoned the area so we are very optimistic that we will recover the remaining Indonesian.”
The fishermen were abducted by the militants in September off Malaysian waters near the southern tip of the Philippine island of Mindanao. They were then taken to the Abu Sayyaf’s jungle bases in Sulu.
Military offensives have reduced abductions by bandits in recent years, but they continue to occur. Abu Sayyaf gunmen have staged kidnappings in and off Sabah state in recent years, sparking a regional security alarm.The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are coordinating on security matters to prevent such abductions along their maritime border.
The rescue of the Indonesians came after the military inflicted successive battle defeats recently to the Abu Sayyaf, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the United States and the Philippines.
Troops have killed a “high-value” but little-known Abu Sayyaf commander, Talha Jumsa, near Sulu’s mountainous Patikul town.
The Abu Sayyaf emerged in the late 1980s as an offshoot of the decades-long Muslim separatist insurgency. After losing its commanders early in battle, the Abu Sayyaf rapidly degenerated into a small but brutal group blamed for ransom kidnappings, beheadings and other acts of banditry. Most of its militant factions have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The rescue came a month after a British man and his wife were freed by soldiers and said they were threatened with beheading by militants if they did not deliver a ransom.
In May, Dutch birdwatcher Ewold Horn was killed by his captors as he tried to escape during a rescue operation, the military said, after being held captive for seven years.
