ZAMBOANGA CITY, 24 August 2006 — Suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels raided a small southern Philippine village yesterday and took at least 14 people hostage for two hours before releasing them unharmed, officials said.
The hostages were freed on a remote village called Buayan in the outskirts of Kabasalan town in Zamboanga Sibugay province, said Freddie Chu, the local mayor. “All 14 hostages are already free. They were not harmed,” he said.
It was unknown why the rebels detained the civilians, who were mostly students and workers at the Baptist Bible Church in the town. Chu said the gunmen had earlier asked for food. “They only wanted food,” he said.
Pastor Manolo Gorde, one of the freed hostages, said the rebels came to the school looking for guns.
“They asked if we had weapons and they also asked for food, medicines and money. We cooked food for them and they held us for more than two hours before releasing us. They did not harm us,” he told the radio network DZRZ-Radyo Agong in Zamboanga City by phone from Kabasalan.
Gorde said the rebels also searched and ransacked nearby houses for weapons before fleeing but did not hurt anyone. They were apparently fleeing from continuing military operations in that area.
Officials said security forces were sent to the town to pursue the rebels.
Police also heightened security in the town and put up checkpoints and road blocks and soldiers were patrolling villages.
“We are in heightened alert right now,” said police officer Mike Canda, of the local police force.
Setbacks
Meanwhile, government troops suffered setbacks in two separate clashes also in the southern Philippines yesterday.
In Bukidnon province in Central Mindanao, another group of communist guerrillas attacked a military outpost, killing an army sergeant and seizing 29 assault rifles in one of their most successful attacks on a military target this year.
Field reports reaching the military’s Southern Command here in Zamboanga City said about 50 NPA guerrillas attacked the patrol base late Tuesday near Banlag town, setting off a gunbattle.
Maj. Ernesto Torres, an army spokesman, said several guerrillas were wounded during the clash and taken away by their comrades.
Among the firearms taken were M-16 and M-14 rifles, which are used by snipers, he said. “This is a big debacle, definitely it will be investigated because so many firearms were taken,” Torres said.
In the island of Jolo, south of Zamboanga City, two army rangers were killed and 17 wounded in fresh fighting with Muslim rebels, military officials said yesterday.
The military had sent the elite rangers to Jolo on Monday to help 3,000 troops, backed by US equipment and intelligence, hunting about 200 militants from the Abu Sayyaf group in the jungles near Indanan town.
“We lost two army rangers and 17 others were wounded in heavy fighting in the mountains near Patikul town,” Col. Susthenes Verzosa, a military spokesman, told reporters, adding the rebels suffered an undetermined number of casualties.
“Sporadic clashes are raging as we speak.” Verzosa said the fighting erupted on Tuesday when soldiers ran into a group of rebels while searching for senior Abu Sayyaf leaders on the run with two Indonesians suspected of carrying out deadly bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002.
On Tuesday, soldiers killed a suspected Abu Sayyaf member in a raid on a hideout on the nearby island of Basilan.
Brig. Gen. Alexander Aleo, the military commander on Jolo, said soldiers had combed the jungles this week after the militants slipped through a dragnet around the mountains outside Indanan.
Security forces are trying to stop Abu Sayyaf and members of Jemaah Islamiyah. (Additional input from agencies)
