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Philippine kidnappers threaten to kill hostages
( 2001-05-29 15:51 ) (7 )

Muslim rebels holding 20 people, including three Americans, hostage in the southern Philippines threatened on Tuesday to kill their captives if the army attacked, a radio station reported.

The DXRZ radio station said it had received a fresh telephone call from Abu Sabaya, a spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf rebels who had earlier claimed responsibility for Sunday's kidnapping from a beach resort near the island of Palawan.

"We will not think twice to conduct mass killing once the military will launch offensive operations," the radio station quoted him as saying.

The Philippine military, under orders from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to use force in their response to the seizures, said it had not been able to locate the kidnappers and their hostages.

A senior police official said villagers had reported seeing Abu Sayyaf rebels and captives on the island of Jolo, 960 km (600 miles) south of Manila, on Monday.

"The extremists with their 20 hostages were sighted on Jolo at 10 a.m. on Monday," superintendent Candido Casimiro said.

But Lieutenant General Gregorio Camiling, chief of the military's southern command, said he could not confirm the report. "As of this morning, we have no indication they landed," he told reporters. "We have already implemented contingency measures, including at possible landing sites," he added.

The government has vowed it will take strong measures against the rebels and will not negotiate.

"Force against force. Arms against arms," Arroyo, an admirer of Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, said in a nationwide broadcast on Monday night. "This is what the challenge you hurled against me calls for. I will oblige you."

Abu Sabaya said in a telephone call to a local radio station on Monday that the hostages had been split into two groups and had been taken to Jolo and the nearby island of Basilan.

The military has said that could be a ploy to mislead authorities and that the rebels could be holed up on any one of the tiny islands which dot the area. They said the telephone call to the radio station was likely made by satellite phone.

Last year, Abu Sayyaf seized more than 40 people, including Western tourists from a resort in neighbouring Malaysia, held them for months in the remote hills of Jolo and released many in exchange for ransoms of up to $1 million per hostage.

Others escaped or were rescued when the government finally lost patience and ordered a military assault on rebel bases.

Much of the ransom money was used to buy sophisticated arms, powerful speedboats and other equipment, local officials in Jolo have said.

In the latest kidnapping, the rebels sailed into the upscale Dos Palmas beach resort off Palawan island before dawn on Sunday and took off with their victims without firing a shot in a smooth operation which lasted less than 30 minutes.

Dos Palmas is an island some 480 km (300 miles) northwest of Jolo, but the rebels could easily have traversed that distance with their powerful speedboats, officials said.

The hostages include a husband-wife missionary team, Gracia and Martin Burnham from Wichita, Kansas, who were at the resort to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary. The couple have been in the Philippines for 15 years.

Another victim was Guillermo Sobero from Corona, California, who turns 40 on Tuesday. A diving enthusiast, he was at Dos Palmas with a Filipina girlfriend.

The others kidnapped include 13 Filipino tourists and four resort staff.