Police Mount Operations To Rescue 2 Kidnapped Basilan Village Officials

BASILAN, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 17, 2008) – Police have mounted an operation to search and rescue two Filipino village officials seized by gunmen in the southern island of Basilan, officials said.

Officials said police commandos were sent to the town of Mohammad Ajul to track down gunmen holding Felardo Tolentino and Jayson Constancio. The two men were seized Wednesday while on their way to inspect a cell site owned by telecommunication giant Globe Telecom in nearby Tuburan town.

“Our forces are tracking down the gunmen and their victims,” Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar, the provincial police chief, told the Mindanao Examiner.

Intelligence reports said the gunmen were believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda terror network and have demanded P 3 million for the safe release of the two men contracted by Globe Telecom to maintain the cell tower. "We suspect the Abu Sayyaf as behind this latest kidnapping," Macapantar said without further elaborating.

Last week, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants and rogue members of the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front freed four kidnapped workers of the Basilan Electric Cooperative, Inc. after two weeks in captivity in exchange for a huge ransom.

The freed hostages - brothers Alberto and Emilberto Singson; Paul Herowig and his brother Birin – were released to emissaries of Basilan deputy governor Alrashid Sakalahul.

Basilan Governor Jum Akbar could not be reached for comment on the latest kidnapping, but reports said the politician had always been out of the province and spent most of her time in Manila.

Akbar is one of four widows of Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar, who was killed in a bomb attack last year at the Philippine Congress in Manila. Another widow, Cherry Lyn Akbar, is the mayor of Basilan’s Isabela City.

Philippine military chief Alexander Yano said the Abu Sayyaf, which was originally fighting for the establishment of a strict Muslim state in Mindanao, had been reduced to being a bandit group. But the United States tagged the Abu Sayyaf group as a foreign terrorist organization with links to the al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya. (Mindanao Examiner)