Kidnappers outrun troops in Philippines hostage
island
JOLO, Philippines, Sept 26
(AFP) - Although outnumbered at least 10 to one, Abu Sayyaf gunmen are outrunning their
Philippine military pursuers waging an uphill battle trying to rescue 17 hostages,
officials concede.
More than 4,000 troops and
police swarmed on the southern island of Jolo on September 16 expecting to
"destroy" the Muslim extremists and pluck out the hostages in a week.
Two French captives escaped
last week, but the only other results of the military operation are the death of up to 105
guerrillas, a soldier and two civilians and the displacement of more than 36,000 people.
The Abu Sayyaf core group have
remained intact, officials said.
The campaign could last at
least another week but the "situation changes from day to day," military
spokesman Brigadier-General Generoso Senga said Tuesday.
Military chief of staff General
Angelo Reyes admitted on Monday that the 400-member guerrilla force's hit and run tactics
had thrown the timetable awry.
"We have been overly
optimistic in estimating how long it will take," he said.
"The problem is more
difficult than we expected."
The top brass remains convinced
they would complete the job in a month, but field officers in charge of rooting out the
guerrillas from the tropical rainforest-clad island are less sanguine.
"The forest cover of Mount
Tumantangis is really thick," a military officer taking part in the campaign told
AFP, referring to a 2,600-foot (788-meter) peak on Jolo's western flank where Abu Sayyaf
leader Galib Andang has taken refuge with 12 Filipino preachers as human shields.
"It's also very difficult
to move while the Jesus Miracle Crusade men are still with them," the officer added.
The Christian evangelists visited an the Abu Sayyaf camp in July to pray over other
captives but were themselves taken hostage.
Military officials say they are
chasing after at least three guerrilla units. One Abu Sayyaf faction holding US hostage
Jeffrey Schilling and one other Filipino hostage is playing a cat and mouse game with the
army in the mountains of western Jolo.
A third faction is believed to
hold three Malaysians, though the military have not spotted it for two weeks.
Field guns arrayed outside the
provincial capital were silent overnight Monday, but there was small gunfire in the
direction of the Jolo public market.
A local Muslim religious
leader, Jacob Ismi, told reporters the army raided the Tulay mosque in the area overnight
and seized 18 suspected Abu Sayyaf members and eight guns from the building.
A convoy of relief workers
aboard vans, pickups, trucks and buses bearing relief goods left for the town of Maimbung
early Tuesday, escorted by a platoon of army men aboard a truck. It was the first relief
mission to be allowed out of the capital since the start of the campaign.
President Joseph Estrada sent
the army into Jolo to end a five month-old hostage crisis which had humiliated the
government.
Before the military crackdown,
the Abu Sayyaf guerillas had ransomed off more than a dozen western and Asian hostages
taken from nearby Malaysia reportedly for millions of dollars.
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