Word: arroyo
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...voiced rebel spokesman Abu Sabaya said: "As our gift in the celebration of Independence Day, we have released unconditionally Guillermo Sobero" (one of the three American captives). The spokesman then paused before delivering his taunting punchline: "But we have released him without his head." That morning, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was due to oversee Manila's Independence Day parade with its marching bands and martial displays, but first she checked with her "security cluster," a special team camped out in the ornate dining room of MalacaNang, the presidential palace, to monitor the three-week-old hostage crisis. Arroyo was told...
...Arroyo, say aides, was shattered. Earlier, Abu Sayyaf, a group that uses an Islamic banner to justify kidnapping, massacres and extortion, had given the President 48 hours to accept a Malaysian businessman as negotiator. After that, Abu Sayyaf threatened, it would start killing the hostages. With the clock ticking away, Arroyo gave in to the rebels' demands?only to have them boast of beheading the Californian tourist anyway. Jeered Abu Sabaya: "It's up to you to find Sobero's head ... but the dogs may beat you to it." Speaking to diplomats after the 103rd Independence Day festivities, the diminutive...
...Despite the threats, the President is holding firm. Arroyo, say her advisers, wants to keep Abu Sayyaf on the run. The last time the group took hostages from a tourist resort?21 were seized in April last year on Sipadan, a famous diving site on the Malaysian coast?they collected an estimated $25 million in ransom. But even before the Sipadan raid, the name Abu Sayyaf raised alarm among Western intelligence agencies. Abu Sayyaf kept surfacing in connection with various plots by Islamic terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, now serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing...
...Sayyaf is also fragmented, having split into three factions after the military killed its founder-leader Abdurajak Janjalani in 1998. That exacerbates Arroyo's challenge. Even if her government manages to capture the current rebels, there are two more outfits ready to kidnap and kill in the future. "It was easier to deal with them when they had a single leader?and an ideology," says a Basilan politician. "Now, these guys are in it for the money, and there's no stopping them...
...like a fast-draw artist, even though he is missing an arm. Manila Security experts claim that these two commanders might either reinforce the hostage-takers on Basilan island or throw the Philippine government into greater disarray by attacking another tourist beach resort and grabbing more hostages. Either way, Arroyo's soldiers may have blown their best chance to finish off Abu Sayyaf. It's an opportunity that may not repeat itself anytime soon...