Word: sabaya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sounded like an unexpected act of charity by Abu Sayyaf rebels, who are holding three Americans and more than 20 Filipinos hostage in the jungles of the southern Philippines. Calling a Mindanao radio station by satellite phone last Tuesday, harsh-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...
...come. It's a cruel group: after their escape last week, the kidnappers beheaded two Filipinos?a cook and security guard seized in the raid on the Dos Palmas tourist resort in the western province of Palawan. Speaking by sat phone to a local radio station, group commander Abu Sabaya said they had also decapitated one of the three American hostages, Californian Guillermo Sobero, although the army said it has no proof of that killing. The group knows the jungle intimately?far better than Manila's men in uniform. For days, the army had no idea where the group...
...Commander Abu Sabaya vowed last week to kill the remaining hostages quickly, including American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, if the army didn't cease its pursuit. "It would be a pity if you provoke us," warned the rebel spokesman. "We will behead the whites...
...Sayyaf's ties with international Islamic terrorism may have broken. At the same time, leadership of the group splintered into two main factions: the first, which is currently holding the hostages in Basilan, has a figurehead in Janjalani's younger brother, Khadaffy. But the real chief is Abu Sabaya, a former media communications student who worked in Saudi Arabia before gravitating to the Afghan training camps. A cleric familiar with the group's history says that Abu Sabaya, whose real name is Ahmad Salayudi, was banished from the Afghan camp for troublemaking...
...Arroyo is in no forgiving mood either. "I will finish what you started," she declared on national TV. "Force against force, arms against arms. That is what you asked for when you challenged me. I will give it to you." Replied spokesman Abu Sabaya, who himself was wounded in Saturday's fighting: "The Philippine government does not seem to care about the hostages ... Why should we?" In the battle for the southern Philippines, the crossfire is getting thicker...