Abu Sayyaf threatens to behead 3 hostages
Credit to Author: AL JACINTO, TMT| Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 16:17:07 +0000
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Abu Sayyaf terrorists have posted a video online threatening to execute a Malaysian and two Indonesian hostages held captive in Mindanao if ransoms are not paid.
Members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), the kidnapping and terror group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, even spoke in
Bahasa Malaysia in the video clip, which showed the Indonesian hostages — believed to be Heri Ardiansyah, 19, and Hariadin, 45 — being guarded by gunmen. They were in a forested area.
The Malaysian hostage, Jari Abdulla, 24, was not with the duo.
The captives, their eyes covered with black cloth and hands tied behind their back, made an emotional appeal for their government to save them.
One militant held a bolo on the neck of Hariadin as he spoke to the camera.
The video, Malaysian reports said, surfaced several days after Abu Sayyaf gunmen phoned Jari’s wife, Nadin Junianti, saying no Malaysian authorities or negotiators had contacted them to secure her husband’s release.
The gunmen said her husband would face difficulties if there was no contact from Malaysia.
They also asked her for telephone contacts of Malaysian journalists.
Nadin has appealed to Malaysian authorities to help secure her husband’s release. She said the kidnap group had contacted her twice.
Malaysian media did not say how much in ransom the Abu Sayyaf was demanding for the safe release of the hostages.
Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Omar Mammah has said they were working with their Philippine counterparts to secure the hostages’ release.
The hostages were kidnapped at sea off Sandakan in Sabah on Dec. 5, 2018.
The militants are believed to be holding nearly a dozen captives, mostly foreigners.
On Wednesday, President Rodrigo Duterte urged Indonesia and Malaysia to join forces with the Philippines in combating crime on the high seas, amid kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf bandits.
‘Daughter of suicide bombers being trained by Abus’
On Thursday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año claimed a daughter of the suicide bombers behind last month’s Jolo Cathedral blasts, entrusted to the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu, was being trained to follow the footsteps of her parents,
“We believe…this child entrusted to the care of ASG will become later on probably a future suicide bomber,” Año told reporters in a news conference at Camp Crame in Quezon City.
Año, a former military chief, said he believed the child was under the custody of Hajan Sawadjaan’s faction of the Abu Sayyaf.
The Interior chief also claimed that some of the Abu Sayyaf had turned themselves into a cult, believing that committing suicide bombing would send them to heaven.
“It’s hard for us to change that kind of mindset. But of course, here in the Philippines, we have a different culture and I don’t believe that our Muslim brothers will follow that kind of path,” Año said.
On Wednesday, the PNP Crime Laboratory released DNA test results on the pair of feet retrieved from the site of the twin explosions at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu.
The results showed that the pair of feet did not match the DNA samples of the 23 fatalities of the twin bombings.
According to Año, the pair of feet might have belonged to the suicide bombers, adding that the daughter of the suspects would be needed to crossmatch the DNA samples gathered investigators.
Año said authorities were also looking for a Yemeni suicide bomber, said to be married to a Tausug or native of Sulu, and also under the care of Sawadjaan in Patikul town in Sulu.
In an interview with CNN Philippines earlier this month, he said he had also suspected this person to be an Egyptian.
Military and police forces are hunting down foreign terrorists in Mindanao, composed of Pakistanis, Egyptians, Malaysians and Indonesians, among others.
WITH DEMPSEY REYES
The post Abu Sayyaf threatens to behead 3 hostages appeared first on The Manila Times Online.