ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 19 Apr) – Abu Sayyaf militants whose group is tied to al-Qaeda terror network, beheaded all seven of their civilian hostages in the troubled island of Jolo, about 950 km south of Manila, officials said Thursday.
The hostages, six of them construction workers and the remaining a fisherman, had been kidnapped April 15 in Parang town. Their severed heads were sent to a military post on the island, said Maj. Eugene Batara, a regional army spokesman.
“Our troops are pursuing the terrorists,” Batara told the Mindanao Examiner. He did not say whether the bodies had been recovered or not.
The Abu Sayyaf decapitated the hostages after the island’s governor, Benjamin Loong, rejected the group’s ransom demand. The kidnappers had demanded at least seven million pesos in exchange for the lives of the hostages.
Six of those executed Nonoy Ampoy, Loloy Teodoro, Roger Francisco, Toto Milas, Wilmer Santos and Dennis delos Reyes were all working for Loong’s construction firm, reports said.
The victims were heading to work when militants kidnapped them. Police and military tagged the leader of the gang as Albader Parad, a notorious Abu Sayyaf commander, blamed for the spate of attacks against civilians and military targets in Jolo.
Others reports said two government soldiers traveling on a civilian jeep were also kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf at a checkpoint in Parang town, but the military said it has no information about the attack.
Security forces are also battling Moro National Liberation Front rebels on the island and the clashes left at least 21 soldiers and gunmen dead and more than 100 wounded since fighting began April 13.
MNLF leader Habier Malik on Thursday warned of more attacks. “There will be more bloodshed. We are not afraid to die fighting the enemies,” he said.
Malik accused the military of violating the September 1996 peace agreement, saying, troops, pursuing the Abu Sayyaf, had killed MNLF members and innocent civilians in several armed encounters on the island.
He said had repeatedly soldiers encroached in MNLF areas, sparking sporadic clashes. The military also accused the MNLF of coddling the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya bombers in Jolo, a charged strongly denied by Malik.
Malik has declared a holy war against the military.
The MNLF rebels, under Chieftain Nur Misuari, signed a peace agreement with the Philippine government in September 1996. After the peace agreement was signed, Misuari became the governor of the Muslim autonomous region. But despite the accord, there was a widespread disillusionment with the weak autonomy they were granted.
Under the peace agreement, Manila would provide a mini-Marshal Plan to spur economic development in Muslim areas in the south and livelihood and housing assistance to tens of thousands of former rebels to uplift their poor living standards.
Many MNLF members were disgruntled with the peace deal, saying, the Arroyo government failed to comply with some of its provisions and uplift their standards of living. They accused Manila of failing to develop the war-torn areas in the south.
And in November 2001, on the eve of the elections in the Muslim autonomous region, Misuari accused the government of reneging on the peace agreement, and launched a new rebellion in Jolo island and Zamboanga City, where more than 100 people were killed.
Misuari then escaped by boat to Malaysia, but had been arrested and deported to the Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)
They are not really interested in the ransom for money. They just want to behead.
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