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Philippine Military Hunting Abu Sayyaf Suspects
The military is hunting down suspected Abu Sayyaf members who killed six people and wounded 10 others in an ambush Sunday in the southern Philippine province of Basilan.
Pursuing government troops have still to recover a female elementary school teacher seized by the suspects in the ambush in a village in Sumisip town as human shield to cushion the charging soldiers, the Philippine Star online news reported Monday.
"They are trying to divert the troops' attention by attacking innocent villagers. And this is usually done by the bandits employing the guerrilla type of warfare," Army Colonel Hermogenes Esperon was quoted as saying.
The ambush came amid a hearing by the National Defense Committee of the House of Representatives in Isabela, capital of Basilan, on allegations that certain military officers had accepted bribes from the Abu Sayyaf to allow the bandit group to escape a tight military cordon in Lamitan town in Basilan on June 2.
Some 5,000 government soldiers have been deployed in Basilan to pursue the Abu Sayyaf bandits who are still holding at least 18 hostages, including an American couple.
The bandits first kidnapped 20 hostages, including three Americans,at a resort in the western province of Palawan on May 27 and later seized more than 50 others in different places in Basilan while on the run from the military.
Fourteen Filipino hostages have been killed by the bandits, while some others have managed to escape or been rescued or released allegedly after ransom was paid by their families. American hostage Guillermo Sobero was also resumed killed, but his body has not been found yet.
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