Intel efforts being intensified to locate ASG lairs, Samal hostages in Sulu

From the Philippine News Agency (Jun 14): Intel efforts being intensified to locate ASG lairs, Samal hostages in Sulu

The Western Mindanao Command (WESMINCOM) on Tuesday announced that it has intensified efforts to track the exact locations of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) bandits and the two remaining Samal Island hostages in Sulu.

This in wake of the bandit group's brutal beheading of Canadian Robert Hall on Monday and subsequent discovery and recovery of the victim's head in front of the Jolo Cathedral at 8:45 p.m. of the same day.

"What we are strengthening right now is the intelligence collection to detrmine once and for all, where they are hiding and the location of their hostages," WESMINCOM spokesperson Major Filemon Tan said when asked on what counter-actions the military is planning against the ASG.

He added that heavy vegetation, difficulties in making undetected approaches, and the bandits' mastery of the Sulu terrain, ability to blend with the civilian population due to kinship, and refusal of the ASG to fight, are the reasons why the military, despite the deployment of around 10 battalions in the province, is having a difficult time in tracking the brigands.

Aside from Samal Island captives Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingtad and Filipina Marites Flor, Hall's girlfriend, another five hostages are in the hands of the ASG in Sulu.

These include Dutch birdwatcher Ewold Horn and four Filipinos.

Hall was beheaded after both the Philippine and Canadian governments ignored the 3:00 p.m., June 13 deadline of the ASG which stipulated that they will execute one of the hostages if the Php600 million was not paid.

Hall, Sekkingtad and Flor and Canadian John Ridsel were snatched by the ASG at a posh resort in Samal Island last Sept. 21.

The ASG beheaded Ridsel last April 25 after the Philippine and Canadian governments refused to pay his PHP300 million ransom.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=894879