Troops press attack to rescue five on
Philippines hostage island
MANILA, Oct 3 (AFP) - Boosted
by the rescue of 12 Christian evangelists, Philippine forces on Tuesday pursued
"hungry and exhausted" Muslim extremists still holding five hostages, a military
spokesman said.
The recovery of the Filipino
preachers on Monday "freed up more troops" to look for the remaining captives
held by Abu Sayyaf gunmen in the southern island of Jolo, Major General Generoso Senga
said.
He said the battalion-size task
group which rescued Wilde Almeda and his Jesus Miracle Crusade followers has joined two
other units looking for US hostage Jeffrey Schilling, Malaysians Kan Wei Chong, Joseph
Ongkinoh and Mohamed Noor Sulaiman and Filipino hostage Roland Ullah.
Senga said the self-styled
separatist guerrillas "are hungry and exhausted from endless running."
The gunmen are also believed to
be "running short of ammunition," he said over radio station DZMM. The rebels
abandoned their hostages after a brief firefight.
President Joseph Estrada said
on Monday that the operation should be completed in "less than a week".
More than 4,000 soldiers and
police pounced on Jolo on September 16 to end a five-month Abu Sayyaf kidnapping spree
that humiliated Estrada and drove off tourists from Malaysia, where the first batch of 21
hostages were taken.
The crisis also scared off
investors from the Philippines.
Senga said "there has been
no indication" that the remaining hostages have been taken out of Jolo, and that the
focus of the military campaign would still be on the island.
"However, we also have
complementary forces in Basilan," an island near Jolo, to track down any Abu Sayyaf
escapees.
Government forces said they
have killed 117 and captured 53 others from the 1,200-member Abu Sayyaf force, while
suffering six soldiers killed and 12 soldiers and police wounded during the rescue
operation.
An air force plane flew the
emaciated preachers to Manila early Tuesday, and they were scheduled to call on Estrada at
Malacanang palace later in the day.
Almeda and his preachers bribed
their way into the Abu Sayyaf camp on July 1 to pray for the original hostages, including
10 westerners. All but 21 of the original batch of captives were later freed after huge
ransoms were paid.
The rebels seized more hostages
later, including two French journalists who escaped four days into the military assault.
US hostage Schilling, a Muslim
convert, voluntarily visited an Abu Sayyaf camp on August 28 while the three Malaysians
were snared in a second Abu Sayyaf cross-border raid into Malaysia on September 10.
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