U.S., RP vow to take on against Abu Sayyaf
U.S., RP vow to take on against Abu Sayyaf
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP): U.S. Pacific fleet commander Admiral Dennis Blair and Philippine defense chief Angelo Reyes agreed on Thursday to boost intelligence sharing on Muslim rebels holding 21 American and Filipino hostages.
The agreement came as police in the southern city of Zamboanga arrested two Abu Sayyaf couriers and the military reported that they were closing in on the kidnappers on southern Basilan island.
Reyes told reporters after the meeting in Manila that he and Blair "briefly talked about the Basilan hostage crisis."
"The concern of the United States on the safety of the hostages is understandable," Reyes said but stressed Blair did not offer U.S. military assistance to pursue the Abu Sayyaf.
Reyes said talks focused on "areas where in terms of sharing intelligence information the Philippine armed forces and the Americans can assist to resolve the hostage situation."
Blair is on a three-day visit for the Mutual Defense Board which oversees defense arrangements.
Security was stepped up at all airports across the Philippines as well as in the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Manila amid intelligence reports foreign Muslim terrorists were planning to enter the country and stage attacks.
Immigration intelligence officer Cris Ablan said a number of Afghan nationals, Arabians and American Muslims had been barred from entering the country in recent weeks.
He said the men claimed to be mostly missionaries who wanted to go to the southern island of Mindanao, but could not give convincing details of their itinerary.
In Zamboanga City, police Senior Superintendent Damming Ungga, said one of the two arrested was the wife of an Abu Sayyaf leader, whom he did not identify.
The other person, a man, was also not identified.
The two were arrested on Wednesday in separate operations in Zamboanga, a 30-minute boat ride from Basilan where Abu Sayyaf gumen were holding the hostages, some of them for more than five weeks.
Ungga, describing the two as Abu Sayyaf couriers, earlier said the group had sent members to Zamboanga to buy arms and ammunition.
Two senior Abu Sayyaf members were arrested by Ungga's group on Tuesday in the first of a series of raids against suspected lairs of the group in Zamboanga City.
Regional military spokesman Colonel Danilo Servando identified one of the men arrested on Tuesday as Basuan Biao Pael, the "chief of the urban terrorist demolitions team" of the Abu Sayyaf.
Servando said a group of elite army scout rangers clashed with a 50-man Abu Sayyaf band in Basilan's Lamitan town on Wednesday, leaving four soldiers wounded and an undetermined number of rebel casualties.
Also on Wednesday, a member of the former rebel group Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was killed while four of his comrades and two soldiers were wounded in another firefight in Lantawan town.
The MNLF was formerly the country's main Muslim rebel force before it signed a peace pact with Manila in 1996, although it still maintains strongholds in the south.
"The MNLF forces opened fire on the soldiers who were running after the Abu Sayyaf," Servando said.
The military has said its operations on Basilan were being hampered by other armed groups in the area, which the Abu Sayyaf had allegedly hired to serve as "blocking forces."
The rebels on May 27 grabbed 17 Filipinos and three Americans from an upscale resort off the western island of Palawan.
Although some of the hostages from the resort have since been freed, reportedly after hefty ransom payments, the Abu Sayyaf have continued to seize more captives and have killed four Filipinos captives.
They claimed to have beheaded one of the Americans, Californian Guillermo Sobero, although his body has not yet been found.