21 Abu Sayyaf hostages seen alive on RP island
21 Abu Sayyaf hostages seen alive on RP island
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP): Two Americans and 19 Filipinos held by Abu Sayyaf guerrillas are still alive and have been seen by government agents in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, the military said Friday.
The sighting by "deep penetration agents" (DPAs), government infiltrators in the rebellion-torn island, was the first in almost a week.
Lt. Col. Danilo Servando said rebel movements were being increasingly limited by a 5,000-member military task force sent to Basilan to rescue the hostages, among them U.S. Christian missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham.
Meanwhile, President Gloria Arroyo told reporters she would "beef up security" for her family amid police fears the Abu Sayyaf could mount terrorist attacks in Manila.
Three suspected Abu Sayyaf members were arrested in the capital this week.
"We have sightings of the remaining hostages. They (the Abu Sayyaf) have no liberty to move in the areas controlled by them because of the troops' presence and information provided by our DPAs," the military spokesman told reporters.
He would not say what the hostages' condition was, saying only that they were in the Sampinit complex -- a 30 square-kilometer (12 square-mile) expanse of tropical jungle in the hilly interior of Basilan.
Two Filipino hostages walked free on Tuesday, reportedly after a huge ransom was paid.
Servando said these two had told their military debriefers that they had been sleeping in an elevated area, indicating they were on one of the mountains in Sampinit.
The two said the American missionaries were still alive. The rebels have claimed to have beheaded a third American hostage, Californian Guillermo Sobero, but his body has not been found.
Filipino Senator Rodolfo Biazon warned the kidnappers, who say they are working to set up an Islamic state in the southern third of mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, have sent 50 recruits to train with the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.
Retired military chief Biazon said the information was relayed to him by a Philippine official in a United Nations mission to Afghanistan investigating the training of suspected terrorists there.
The report means "we will have to contend with a strengthened Abu Sayyaf," he said on government television.
Washington and Moscow have accused the Taliban Islamic militia, which controls much of Afghanistan, of harboring suspected terrorists, including Saudi dissident millionaire Osama bin Laden.
Philippines Vice President Teofisto Guingona said these Filipino trainees would be beyond Manila's reach there.
"We don't have diplomatic relations with Afghanistan and we don't have the right to knock at Afghanistan and ask for these Filipinos. We have to wait for UN action," he told reporters.
In a kidnapping spree that began on May 27, the Abu Sayyaf seized 39 people, including the three Americans from a tourist resort off western Palawan island. They have since killed four Filipinos.
More than a dozen others have been freed.
On Wednesday, Abu Sayyaf forces set off bombs in the Basilan capital of Isabela in what the military said was an attempt to divert the attention of the kidnap task force.
On Friday rumors of an Abu Sayyaf plot to kidnap students cleared out a Roman Catholic school in this southern city, with anxious parents pulling out scores of students.
Police said the panic at Ateneo de Zamboanga was caused by a hoax.
Col. Damming Unga, head of an anti-terrorism task force here, said citizens were giving more tips on suspected Abu Sayyaf infiltrators in their areas, with an eye on the huge bounty the government has placed on the heads of Abu Sayyaf leaders.