RP, Malaysian ships search for hostages

RP, Malaysian ships search for hostages

Reuters, Manila

Philippine and Malaysian navy ships searched on Tuesday for three abducted crew members of a tugboat as suspicions grew that the Abu Sayyaf group carried out the weekend attack.

Armed men in speed boats intercepted the boat off the Malaysian state of Sabah on Sunday and took its Indonesian captain and two Malaysian crew members hostage.

Philippine naval authorities said the hostages, Indonesian Sam Walter and Malaysians Toh Chiem Tiong and Wong Sien Nung, were initially taken to an island in Philippine waters off the Sabah coast, close to the Tawi-tawi chain.

"We are scouring the waters off Cagayan de Tawi-tawi island because we believed that the hostages were brought there based on our intelligence analysis," said Geronimo Malabanan, a spokesman for the Philippine Navy.

He said a Philippine warship with three minor vessels was patrolling the area, while several Malaysian ships were searching on the other side of the border.

"We are now receiving reports from the field that the group who abducted the three were Abu Sayyaf members and the alleged leader is a certain alias Lajid," he 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.

Analysts and diplomats believe the Philippines' Abu Sayyaf group 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.

Separately, military authorities said an Abu Sayyaf member involved in the abduction of three Americans and 17 Filipinos from a beach resort in May 2001 was arrested on Tuesday.

Colonel Raymundo Ferrer, an army commander on southern Basilan island, said Utoh Hapibin was caught as security forces continued their search for prisoners, including 23 suspected Abu Sayyaf members, who escaped from jail last Saturday.

Two more escaped prisoners were killed in gun battle on Monday night, he said, leaving more than a dozen men still at large. Eleven have been killed and 28 recaptured.

"We will not stop until we have accounted for all of them," William Gadayan, a local police chief, told reporters.