Sayyaf abducts, decapitates three men in South RP

BASILAN, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / June 13, 2010) – Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded three men they abducted on a remote village in the southern Philippine province of Basilan, police said Sunday.

Police said the bodies and their severed heads were all recovered in Maluso town where militants with links to Jemaah Islamiya and Al-Qaeda had been recovered Saturday.

“There is an ongoing operation to track down the Abu Sayyaf responsible in the killings,” Senior Superintendent Antonio Mendoza, the provincial police chief, said and blaming the brutal murders to Puruji Indama, which heads a faction of the Abu Sayyaf in restive province of Basilan.

He said the three men were just gathering woods near Abong-Abong village and had been abducted on Friday afternoon and their bodies recovered the next day.

The motive of the killings was unknown, but Mendoza said the victims were all Christians. The attacks came a week after the Abu Sayyaf also decapitated three kidnapped Christian men after their families failed to pay huge ransom in exchange for their lives.

The Abu Sayyaf is small, but the most notorious terrorist group blamed by authorities for the spate of bombings, killings and kidnappings-for-ransom. Dozens of people had been killed in past attacks in Basilan, one of five provinces under the Muslim autonomous region.

The breakdown of peace and order in the province has been largely blamed by citizens to the failure of military and police to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf and the absence of local government officials who frequently stay in their bungalows in Zamboanga and Manila. (Mindanao Examiner)