ZAMBOANGA CITY, 5 March 2006 — Gunmen yesterday shot dead the mayor of Isabela, the capital town of Basilan island-province in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Three bodyguards of Mayor Luis Biel were wounded when the gunmen opened fire at the mayor as he and his men were about to leave the City Hall at around 12:15 p.m. on Friday.

Biel died while being treated in hospital, said provincial health officer Nilo Barandino.

One of Biel’s security escorts shot and killed one of the gunmen, but the other one managed to escape.

Investigators would not speculate on the motive of the killing, saying only that they were looking into various angles including alleged threats against the mayor for ordering to demolition of the Isabela’s oldest mosque.

Biel had wanted the Ihya Unsunna Mosque demolished, as ordered by a local court, to pave the way for the construction of a market depot.

Protest leader Omar Suhod said demolishing the mosque constituted an attack to Islam.

“This is our place of worship, this is the house of God and destroying the mosque will only bring troubles because the Muslims are angry. We appeal to our leaders to please spare the mosque,” he said.

Angry Muslims have threatened to attack the island’s only Catholic cathedral if the mosque in downtown Isabela is demolished.

“We will fight for our right. There will be bloodshed is they destroy the mosque. Angry Muslims may also do the same to the Catholic Church downtown,” Maruan Tandi said.

Rescue Off Basilan

Also in the southern Philippines, Philippine and US troops yesterday rescued at sea 15 people after their motor boat ran out of gas and drifted for hours off Basilan, officials said.

The boat, rescued before dawn, was heading back to Zamboanga City from Basilan on Friday when it ran out of fuel. A US plane tracked down the boat and alerted the Philippine Navy about its location off Basilan’s Maluso town, a known lair of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.

Frencie Carreon, communications Officer of the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) Program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said one of their staff, Roland Ramos, sent her an SMS from his cell phone, saying, the boat was drifting at sea.

She said she sought the assistance of Italian philanthropist Armando de Rossi, who was in Zamboanga City. De Rossi, chair of the 3P Foundation, came from a humanitarian mission in Jolo Island with US military officials, and coordinated with American and Filipino navy officers to help in the rescue operation. De Rossi is also a member of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxilliary.

“It is our duty to contribute our efforts to save them,” de Rossi said.

Col. James Linder, commander of the Joint Special Operation Task Force-Philippines, said the rescue operation was done by the Philippine Navy and supported by the US Forces in “combined, shoulder-to-shoulder efforts in the true spirit of Balikatan.”

Balikatan is the codename of the ongoing joint RP-US military drill in the Philippines.

Most of those rescued were members of the AMORE and Mirant Philippines, the country’s largest energy-producing company and a local television news cameraman Paul Reales, who went to Basilan to inspect project sites.