Troops rescue 3 Sayyaf hostages

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Pursuing government forces rescued three hostages of the Abu Sayyaf after a gunbattle late Friday afternoon in the foothills of the Sam-pinit range near Lantawan town in Basilan, the military said yesterday.

Army Col. Hermogenes Esperon, Task Force Thunder commander, said two bandits were also captured yesterday morning as a result of the ongoing pursuit operations in Barangay Makiri in Lantawan.

Esperon said elements of the Marine Reconnaissance Company and the 24th Special Forces clashed with 40 heavily armed bandits led by Isnilon Hapilon at about 11 a.m. Friday.

The encounter resulted in the wounding of a government trooper, Cpl. Radji Raini.

The group was sighted towing 13 hostages, mostly workers who were abducted from the Golden Harvest plantation in Barangay Tairan in Lantawan on June 11, he said.

Esperon identified the rescued hostages as Vicente Perillo Sr., his son Vicente Jr. and their relative Ferdinand Perillo.

Hapilon’s group beheaded two of their 15 original hostages while the remaining 10 are still in bandit hands.

"This is a result of the troops’ efforts in closing in despite inclement weather conditions. The bandits are now losing maneuvering area and the troops are already used to the terrain," Esperon said.

The government forces are under the direct command of Col. Renato Miranda who had been pursuing Hapilon’s band since Wednesday, Esperon said.

He declined to identify the two captured bandits who were brought to task force headquarters for tactical interrogation.

Esperon, however, hoped to chance upon a separate bandit group holding nine other hostages, including American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham.

The Burnhams, along with two other resort guests, were abducted from a beach resort in Palawan last May 27 while the five others were staff members of the Jose Torres Hospital in Lantawan who were taken captive on June 4.

Yesterday’s rescue of three hostages comes amid increasing public criticism over the military’s failure to recover the hostages and crush the bandit group more than two months after the latest kidnapping crisis broke out.

The latest kidnapping spree began on May 27 when the Abu Sayyaf seized the Burnhams, another American Guillermo Sobero, and 17 Filipinos from the Dos Palmas island resort off Palawan.

The bandits, however, claimed they beheaded Sobero in April after the government refused to comply with their demands. His body, however, has never been found.

Despite the deployment of thousands of troops, the Abu Sayyaf seized more hostages. They beheaded some hostages who could not pay their ransom demands while they released others reportedly after the payment of hefty ransom.

On Friday, President Arroyo ordered a probe into allegations that relieved military officials were in cahoots with the bandits and allowed them to escape when the bandits were cornered in the Lamitan hospital.

Clashes with the bandits in different parts of the island stepped up this week after following a bandit raid on Lamitan last weekend where they briefly took a number of hostages and beheaded 10 villagers.

On nearby Sulu Island, two Army intelligence officers were captured by the Abu Sayyaf and beheaded on Wednesday.

Also in Sulu, six bandits under Ghalib Andang, alias Commander Robot, surrendered to the police in Talipao town on Friday.

Reports reaching Camp Crame yesterday identified them as Sibar Abdul, Magdahar Marjuki, Babing Hara, Andah Julaide, Badding Gulam, Hissan Gulam and Julhakim Kamilan.

The group yielded with their six M-16 rifles to SPO1 Rud Yusep at about 6:30 p.m. at the Talipao police station. – With Jaime Laude