Philippines Military Rescues U.S. HostageTroops and police stormed a jungle hide-out on Thursday to free a U.S. hostage from Muslim rebels who had threatened to behead him as a grisly "birthday present" to the Philippine president.The hostage, 25-year-old Jeffrey Schilling of Oakland, Calif., was in good health Thursday after the raid on Jolo island, 580 miles south of Manila. Marine commandos and police killed some Abu Sayyaf rebels and wounded others, said Brig. Gen. Diomedio Villanueva. After the rebels threatened to behead Schilling last week, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo responded by declaring "all-out war" against the group, pouring 3,000 troops into the island's steamy jungles, then sending in another 1,800 reinforcements early Thursday. She vowed to destroy the rebel movement. Schilling, a Muslim convert, was taken by the rebels after he visited their camp in Jolo on Aug. 31. He was accompanied by his wife, Ivy Osani, the cousin of a rebel leader, Abu Sabaya. Osani was freed after the rebels seized Schilling. |
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