Pirates want ransom to cover cost of abduction: Official
Pirates want ransom to cover cost of abduction: Official
Agencies, Zamboanga, Philippines
A group of pirates in the southern Philippines is demanding a ransom of 100,000 pesos ($2,000) for three Indonesians kidnapped from a tugboat last week, saying they only want to be reimbursed for cost of the abduction, a military official said on Thursday.
The kidnappers told local negotiators that the demand represents what they spent detaining the Indonesian sailors in the mountainous hinterlands of Jolo island, Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina said.
"They apparently just want their expenses reimbursed," Carolina said.
Despite the negotiations, efforts by the military to rescue the captives were continuing, he said.
The Indonesians were taken at gunpoint on June 17 by 11 men in military fatigues riding in three speedboats off Jolo, an island province about 940 kilometers (580 miles) south of Manila.
The gunmen stopped the tugboat, fired warning shots and abducted the captain and three other officers, leaving six junior crew members behind, navy officials said. One of the kidnapped Indonesians escaped after the abduction.
The Indonesians, on a two-week journey to transport coal to the central Philippines, apparently took a shortcut and traveled closer to Jolo to save on diesel fuel, which they planned to sell, Carolina said.
That route "made them targets of opportunity" for the pirates, he said.
Pirates, smugglers, Muslim guerrillas and drug and gun traffickers have roamed the vast seas in the country's extreme south near the border with Malaysia and Indonesia for centuries.
Separately, Muslim guerrillas killed a Philippine army officer and wounded five soldiers in a gunbattle on Thursday on a southern island where the Indonesian seamen have been held hostage for more than a week.
Military reports said an undetermined number of rebels were wounded in the encounter in the Patikul hills of Jolo island, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group, which has been linked to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
Soldiers belonging to the Philippine army's elite Scout Rangers battalion were scouring the jungles of Patikul for Abu Sayyaf guerrillas when they were fired upon, setting off Thursday's two-hour gunbattle, military officials said.
One of the officers leading the troops, a lieutenant, was wounded and died while being evacuated.
"We cannot yet ascertain how many casualties the Abu Sayyaf have suffered. Pursuit operations are continuing," Carolina told reporters.
He said the guerrillas encountered by the troops were not the group holding the Indonesians. Military officials said they believed the kidnappers were pirates and that local politicians had begun negotiations for the release of the Indonesians.
Military intelligence said the kidnappers were believed to be keeping their hostages in the jungles of Luuk town, 20 km (12 miles) west of the scene of Thursday's fighting.
The Indonesians were kidnapped three days after U.S. missionary Martin Burnham and a Filipina nurse, who had been held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf for more than a year, were killed during a military rescue operation in Zamboanga del Norte. Burnham's wife, Gracia, was rescued although wounded.
Military officials said intelligence data obtained by high tech U.S. detection equipment was helping local troops track down the Abu Sayyaf in their hideouts on Basilan and Jolo.
"We get the technical data, we give it to the troops on the ground and they check," one official said.
The Abu Sayyaf claims to fight for an Islamic homeland in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines but has been engaged mainly in kidnap for ransom activities.