Sayyaf seizes girl,9, in Basilan

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Four suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels snatched a nine-year-old girl from her mother in Lamitan, Basilan Wednesday night, authorities said.

This developed as the Western Mindanao police command was laying out its strategy to stem the series of kidnappings in the region.

The abduction also came as a sour note to the celebration of the Week of Peace here, the 11th since 1997, participated in by nearly 20,000 people.

Authorities said four armed men on board two motorcycles grabbed the girl from her mother in front of their house in Barangay Malakas, Lamitan town at around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Nick Castro, security chief of Lamitan Mayor Roderick Furigay, said the girl’s mother resisted but the kidnappers pointed a gun at her.

Maj. Eugene Batara, spokesman of the Western Mindanao Command, said pursuing policemen and Marines found the two motorcycles abandoned in Barangay Colonia.

Authorities said there was still no ransom demand from the kidnappers, suspected to be men of Abu Sayyaf leader Puruji Indama.

Indama’s group was also suspected to be holding captive Joed Anthony Pilanga, a nursing student of Ateneo de Zamboanga University who was snatched here and brought to Basilan last month. A P20-million ransom was demanded for his release.

This city’s police chief, Senior Superintendent Lurimer Detran, was earlier relieved from his post due to the spate of kidnappings.