Word: sayyaf
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...Sayyaf is a Muslim guerrilla group based in the Philippines, where it wants a separate Islamic homeland. The group's 300 members now hold 18 hostages, including an American couple. Its frequent kidnappings have netted millions in ransom. Philippine officials said recently that Osama bin Laden supplies the group with arms...
...Winners WILLEM-ALEXANDER Dutch parliament clears prince to wed Argentine fianc?. He appeals to World Court. Experts say if he loses there, he's out of excuses GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO Philippine Prez weighs offer to be Unilever soap girl. She will scrub the Abu Sayyaf so squeaky clean they will beg for mercy GRANDPA BUA Thai monk turned over $6 million in donations to central bank. Surprised government officials make solemn vow to embezzle the funds
...PHILIPPINES Beheadings As Philippine troops claimed to be closing in on Abu Sayyaf rebels on Basilan Island, they discoved three severed heads. The heads may have belonged to some of the 20 hostages seized by the rebels on Palawan Island on May 27. They were found in an area where the gunmen said they had decapitated one of the three Americans held hostage, Guillermo Sobero, on June...
...rebels also suffered an internal setback last week. A powerful Abu Sayyaf commander named Ghalib Andang from Jolo island is negotiating his surrender, presidential sources said on Friday. Commander Robot (as Andang is commonly known) carried out a kidnapping on a Sipadan island diving resort in Malaysia last April, netting more than $425 million in ransom from European nations, Libya and Malaysia. Robot's surrender won't necessarily help the current hostages, who are being held by a different faction, but it means the Basilan-based rebels can no longer count on reinforcements?or on an easy escape route...
...Sobero's nightmare began May 27, when he and a Filipina were dragged out of their bungalow at the Dos Palmas diving resort in Palawan island by rebels of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic militant group described by a U.S. official as "Kidnap Inc." The terrorists also grabbed a Kansas missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, who were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary, and 13 Filipinos. They were forced into speedboats and hauled 400 km to Basilan, the terrorists' island lair off southern Mindanao. Rebels last week claimed they had beheaded Sobero, but the Philippine military said it couldn...