Muslim extremists linked to the al-Qaida terror network beheaded two of six Jehovah’s Witnesses they kidnapped in the southern Philippines and dumped their heads in a public market, authorities said on Thursday.
Brigadier General Romeo Tolentino, army commander on the southern island of Jolo, said the heads of the two male hostages were found in the centre of Jolo town.
One head was left in a cloth bag and another in a plastic bag on food stands about 100 meters apart in the town’s main market. Attached notes denounced the victims as ”infidels” and called for ”jihad” or Islamic holy war, he said.
The two men, along with four women, were abducted on Tuesday a few kilometres outside of Jolo town, in Patikul district, a stronghold of the fanatical Abu Sayyaf group that survived a US-backed military campaign to wipe it out.
The hostages had been selling Avon cosmetics, herbal teas and medical supplies on the predominantly Muslim island, police said. Some Philippine newspapers described them as also being ”preachers” who had been spreading their religion in Patikul, considered extremely dangerous for Christians. Authorities on Jolo island, about 900 kilometres south of Manila, could not confirm this.
For the second consecutive night, the army on Wednesday shelled suspected Jolo island hide-outs of the Abu Sayyaf, known for mass kidnappings of Filipinos and others, including South Africans and Americans. Some have been beheaded. Tuesday’s kidnappings were the first by the Abu Sayyaf since the United States began supporting a Philippines military campaign to eradicate the group in February.
A six-month US military mission in the area ended last month. At that time American and Filipino officials boasted that the Abu Sayyaf had been decimated.
The latest killings and abductions were a major setback for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s attempts to restore law and order in the Philippines and for Washington’s focus on Southeast Asia in its war on terror.
”Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, the sharks called Abu Sayyaf rear their ugly heads again,” said the Manila Standard newspaper.
Arroyo has not publicly commented on the kidnapping but her press secretary, Ignacio Bunye, said it was ”a challenge and we know how the military will respond to it.”
Military spokesman Colonel Jose Mendoza denied that the kidnapping shows the Abu Sayyaf still has much power.
”What we have now in Jolo are splinter groups that are saying they are still around,” he said. ”They staged this abduction because they are feeling the pressure.”
Officials said the two dead were 21-year-old Lemuel Bantolo and Leonel Mantic, of an unknown age.
Mantic’s 23-year-old widow, Emily, was feared to be one of the surviving captives along with Cleofe Bantolo (46) Flora Bantolo (40) and Nori Bendijo (41) The relationship between the captive Bantolos and victim Lemuel Bantolo wasn’t immediately known.
Police and military officers say the kidnappings were led by Muin Maulod Sahiron, a nephew of Radullan Sahiron who heads the Abu Sayyaf group in Patikul.
Police said two men with pistols stopped a jeep carrying the Jehovah’s Witnesses and forced them out on Tuesday. The driver was left behind and alerted authorities. Two other people in the vehicle, who were Muslim, were also not taken hostage.
Police also found Avon products and herbal teas in the jeep. A representative at the Avon Product, Inc.’s New York headquarters, Victor Beaudet, said the abductees were not employees or official Avon representatives.
The Abu Sayyaf has often kidnapped for ransom but more frequently has abducted poor Filipinos, mostly Christians, to serve for weeks or months as slave labour. Kidnapped women are sometimes forced to marry guerrillas.
For six months from February, about 1 200 US troops trained and gave supplies and intelligence to Philippine troops hunting the Abu Sayyaf.
The US program ended officially three weeks ago, although a few Americans remain on Basilan island near Jolo.
On May 27, 2001, Abu Sayyaf rebels raided a tourist resort and abducted three Americans and 17 Filipinos.
Days later, the gang beheaded American Guillermo Sobero from Corona, California. They also beheaded several Filipino hostages.
That kidnapping saga ended on June 7 this year when US-trained and backed Philippine soldiers tracked down the rebels. They rescued American missionary Gracia Burnham, however her husband Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap were killed in the bloody jungle raid.
A Filipino man, Roland Ullah, is still being held from another Abu Sayyaf mass kidnapping two years ago from a tourist resort in Malaysia. – Sapa-AP