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.