Army bid to free hostages continues

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The military ignored threats by Abu Sayyaf to behead two foreign hostages if the terrorists’ deadline for ransom payment is not met, saying operations to rescue the kidnapping victims and wipe out the terror group are continuing.

Maj. Filemon Tan Jr., spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom), said the objective is to safely extract the hostages from Abu Sayyaf camps through “focused military operations.”

“The deadline set by the Abu Sayyaf is its own deadline,” said Tan.

He said the armed forces “will continue to conduct intensified focused military operations based on the available information to immediately rescue the kidnap victims.”

The safety of the kidnapping victims, he said, “is our primary concern.”

In a video released by Abu Sayyaf and posted online by the SITE Intelligence Group on May 13, the terror group showed Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad surrounded by hooded armed men.

The armed men, talking in the video, said ransom for the two captives should be delivered by June 13 or one of the hostages would be killed. The terrorists did not say which one.

Abu Sayyaf has been demanding $13 million for the captives.

On April 25, a hostage, Canadian John Ridsdel, was beheaded after his family failed to deliver the P300 million ransom that the terrorists were demanding.

Tan said military intelligence units had been mobilized to increase efforts to locate the hostages.

Intelligence information, he said, is key to locating the victims and their captives.

A respected Muslim leader in Mindanao said those who beheaded Ridsdel cannot be considered members of any Islamic militant group but are plain criminals and “drug addicts.”

Sulu Sultan Ibrahim Bahjin said the beheading of Ridsdel is “truly grievous” act that no Muslim would perpetrate.

In Sulu, which is known to host a faction of Abu Sayyaf, “it is public knowledge that armed kidnappers are drug addicts.”

The sultan said western media reports “perpetuate the (misconception) that kidnapping and other barbaric acts constitute Islamic teachings.”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” said Bahjin.

“There is only one kind of war allowed in Islam, and that is defensive war,” he said.

“We weep for our Islam which continues to be unfairly blamed and judged,” he added. Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao with a report by Nash B. Maulana, Inquirer Mindanao