ZAMBOANGA CITY, 14 December 2003 — Suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen seized two cargo trucks and abducted its drivers on a remote village in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, where security forces are pursuing the rebel group tied to Al-Qaeda network.
The trucks were transporting hundreds of kilos of coconuts when the rebels flagged down the vehicles near the village of Tairan in Lantawan town, a local radio station DXRZ-Radyo Agong reported yesterday.
It said a group of rebels, led by Abu Sayyaf commander Tahilon Asalon, also took the two drivers, whose identities were not immediately known. The radio station did not say when the incident occurred, but the military’s Southern Command said it is verifying the reports.
“We are still checking the reports,” Lt. Col. Renoir Pascua, spokesman of the Southern Command, told reporters in Zamboanga City.
The fate of the drivers were unknown and the trucks are still missing, the reports said. The town is a known lair of the Abu Sayyaf group, blamed by the military and police for the kidnapping and killing of a dozen farmers in Tairan village in 2001. Most of the victims — used as shield against pursuing troops — were decapitated by rebels.
The military said security forces were pursuing the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, about 20 kilometers south of Zamboanga City. It claimed the number of rebels in the island has dramatically decreased after the Philippines and the United States held joint anti-terrorism training exercises last year in Basilan.
But most of the gunmen have fled the massive military operation to the southern island of Jolo and on the main island of Mindanao, where they have been monitored to have joined a smaller rebel group the Abu Sufia, which had been linked to a series of terrorism and kidnappings of mostly foreigners and wealthy traders in the region.
Government soldiers mounted fresh offensive against the Abu Sayyaf group in the southern Philippines after security forces captured a senior militant leader Galib Andang following a firefight in Jolo.
Washington has included the group on its list of foreign terrorist organizations and offered as much as $5 million bounty for the capture of each of five known guerilla leaders.
s implicated in the killing of Guillermo Sobero and Martin Burnham.
