The Philippines has pulled out the army unit that engaged the Abu Sayyaf on Saturday, replacing them fresh troops, backed by artillery, tanks and aircraft, in pursuit operations.
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In a pattern similar to previous raids by Abu Sayyaf, militants opened their online campaign for ransom last November, demanding one billion pesos ($28 million Canadian) for each of the four.
With machetes against their necks, two Canadian men held hostage for more than six months in the Philippines appeared in a new video released Friday to make a “final urgent appeal” to Ottawa to comply with their captors’ ransom demands.
There was no explanation why the ransom was reduced or a deadline set. Now that the deadline of warning is over last April 8, 2016, but still you procrastinate.
A Canadian government official declined to address the earlier threats, telling CBC News it “would not comment or release any information which may compromise ongoing efforts or endanger the safety of Canadian citizens”. “I’m wondering what they’re waiting for”, Hall says to the camera.
The other Canadian and the Norwegian also made appeals, but the Filipino woman was not allowed to speak.
The Philippine militant group also took the MV Massive 6 tugboat and its crew of nine hostage on April 1 while it was en route from Tawau in Sabah, Malaysia, to Samarinda in East Kalimantan.
Manila: The Philippines has dismissed as “purely propaganda” Islamic State’s claim that its militants killed scores of government troops in ambushes and said there was no evidence directly linking southern Muslim rebels to the group.
When asked to confirm if another senior Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf leader, Furuji Indama, was killed in recent fighting with government forces, Tan responded, “reports reached me, he Furuji Indama was critically wounded”.
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Among those killed were a Moroccan bomb expert called Mohammad Khattab, who the military said had been sent to build ties between local Muslim rebel groups and an worldwide jihadist network.
