Armed men take RI sailor hostage from boat

Armed men take RI sailor hostage from boat

Reuters, Manila

Armed men in speed boats intercepted a tugboat towing a barge off the Malaysian state of Sabah, taking its Indonesian captain and two Malaysian crew members hostage, the Philippine navy said on Monday.

Feliciano Angue, a navy captain in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, said the hostages were initially taken to an island in Philippine waters off the Sabah coast, close to the Tawi-Tawi chain, before being moved elsewhere in Philippine territory.

Angue said the men were part of a Philippine kidnap group known to the military but declined to say whether they were part of the Abu Sayyaf militant group, which operates in the area.

"It appeared that an armed group from the Philippines was behind this abduction," he said. "We are familiar with this group, which has previous kidnapping records."

Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said Malaysian authorities had picked up distress signals but were unable to help as the abduction took place in Philippine waters.

"We received radio signals that they were being attacked by a certain group," Najib told a news conference.

"We sent our team. Since it happened in the Philippines waters we couldn't do anything. We are searching for them but we can't move into the Philippines territory."

The Philippine navy initially said the three hostages were the Indonesian crew of a fishing boat.

Angue told television on Monday that a witness had seen the hostages being led into a house on an island. The captives were from a tugboat named Ocean 2, Angue said.

Last October, gunmen kidnapped a group of five or six workers from a beach resort in Sabah, the northern part of Borneo island. The Philippine military says it is still looking for them, and believes they are being held near Tawi-Tawi.

The area is close to the southern Philippine stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group, which became notorious for kidnapping tourists in 2000 and 2001 from Malaysian resorts off the Sabah coast and from a nearby Philippine island.

Analysts and diplomats believe Abu Sayyaf was linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda in the 1990s, but doubt the ties still exist as the group has become more of a criminal gang.

The government said last month that it had averted a major terrorist strike on Manila by the Abu Sayyaf by arresting six suspected members and seizing a large amount of explosive.