4 Sayyaf hostages rescued

ISABELA CITY – Troops rescued four Filipino hostages early yesterday while pursuing Muslim extremist guerrillas in the jungles of Basilan, military officials said.

The rescued hostages reported seeing two Arabs meeting the rebels during their captivity, one of whom could be the son of a Yemeni general, officials said.

The rescue and the recent escape of four other hostages have raised hopes that a dozen remaining captives, including an American couple, could be recovered soon.

Officials said time could be running out for the Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent Muslim rebel group with links to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile suspected of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

"We’re seeing the start of the end," National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said. "Let us all pray that the end is near for the Abu Sayyaf."

Troops rescued hospital worker Joel Guillo, 26; and farmers Reynaldo Ariston, 26; Ruben Baldesamos, 13; and Rodrigo Solon, 37, while chasing Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in Lumbang village in Basilan’s coastal town of Lantawan, said Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu, chief of the military’s Southern Command.

The rescued hostages are all from sitio Golden Harvest, Barangay Matikang, Lantawan.

The rebels are still holding missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kansas, who were abducted with Corona, California, resident Guillermo Sobero and 17 Filipinos from an island resort in Palawan on May 27 and brought to Basilan by speedboats.

Guillo said the rebels tied Martin’s hands with a nylon rope most of the time to prevent him from escaping and that his wife often cried at night. The Americans have lost considerable weight and are always tightly guarded, he said.

"We were forced to walk day and night to evade soldiers. Many of us were sick and have lost weight, including the Americans," Guillo told reporters at an Army camp in Isabela, Basilan’s capital. He said they survived mostly on root crops, rice and bananas.

Guillo said he last saw the Americans early yesterday, when he and three other Filipino hostages dashed to freedom as troops set off bombs near a jungle where they were staying.

About 50 guerrillas, led by prominent Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya, fled in small groups with some rebels dragging the American couple along, he said. The rebels claimed they beheaded Sobero and his remains were found last month near a Basilan peak.

Guillo said two foreigners, apparently Yemeni nationals, joined the captors in mid-September shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the US east coast, then disappeared early this month. The visitors mostly took footage of bandit activities.

"They (Yemeni nationals) arrived in Basilan after the bombing of the World Trade Center," Guillo revealed, adding that the two could have passed through the southern backdoor.

Cimatu said yesterday the military was verifying reports that one of the Arab guests of the Abu Sayyaf is the son of a Yemeni general.

"He (Guillo) said Sabaya told him that the two were just ‘visiting’ and one of them is a son of a Yemeni general," Cimatu said, adding that the rescued captive could scarcely understand the conversation between the bandits and their guests.

Guillo said: "I saw the two Arabs. One was bearded and the other was shaved."

Abu Sayyaf guerrillas told the hostages the two were linked to Bin Laden, Guillo said. At one point, he said he overheard the two foreigners admonishing the guerrillas to stop the kidnapping and beheading of civilians "but to continue the robbery to support the operations."

The former hostage also disclosed that the Abu Sayyaf rebels "jumped for joy" after hearing of the terror attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.

According to Guillo, who has since been baptized as Abdul Hudalpa, bandit chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and eight of his trusted comrades also slipped out of Basilan following the departure of the Yemenis, who left the island Oct. 5.

"We even heard from Sabaya who contacted the group of Janjalani that their speedboat capsized," said Guillo, who, along with the other rescued hostages, was brought to the 24th Special Forces Company in this city for debriefing.

Guillo was seized with three other workers in a hospital in Basilan’s Lamitan town on June 2. The farmers were abducted days later from a coconut plantation in nearby Lantawan.

During the rescue operation, the victims narrated that they were walking in single file when government troops under the 32nd Infantry Battalion assaulted the Abu Sayyaf at around 1 a.m.

"I told my companions to duck and convinced them this was the chance to escape. We just realized that the armoured vehicle was near us and all the Abu Sayyaf had scampered away," Guillo told newsmen here.

Two soldiers were wounded in the assault while the bandits fled with an undetermined number of casualties, Cimatu said. A seven-year-old boy died and three of his relatives were wounded when a stray mortar shell slammed into their house during the fighting overnight. Their names were not immediately available.

Four other coconut plantation farmers escaped from the guerrillas in recent days. Military officials say the Abu Sayyaf may be in disarray after government troops stumbled on the main rebel force near Lantawan two weeks ago then relentlessly pursued them.

On Saturday, the fleeing guerrillas seized four farmers in Lantawan’s Atong Atong village and beheaded two of them. The other two escaped, Cimatu said.

Golez said President Arroyo has congratulated Cimatu for the latest rescues.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao noted that the beheading of the two farmers showed that the bandits are feeling the military pressure.

"Once they are encircled they try to undertake these terrorist attacks again. It’s a desperate move on their part," Tiglao said.

The United States is helping the Philippines train and supply weapons to some of the more than 7,000 Filipino soldiers pursuing the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) south of Manila.

The guerrillas, who are notorious for kidnappings for ransom, claim to be fighting for Muslim independence in the southern Philippines but the government dismisses them as mere bandits. – Roel Pareño, Reuters, Paolo Romero