Word: sipadan
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...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...
...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...
...other faction, based in the Sulu islands, is led by Galib Andang, nicknamed Commander Robot for the mechanical way he dances. Addicted to shabu (methamphetamines) and married to at least two of his female ex-kidnap victims, Andang directed the Sipadan raid. He is also known to be generous: so much of the Sipadan ransom spilled over onto his native island Jolo that the dollar fell among local traders from 50 pesos to 25. Another Sulu island commander is Raddulan Sahirun. In his 60s, Raddulan wears two revolvers around his waist like a fast-draw artist, even though...
...which can only lessen the remaining hostages' hopes of getting out unscathed. Zulkurnain Hashim, a 30-year-old wildlife ranger kidnapped last year from Sipadan Island, comments: "If there is a military attack, the Abu Sayyaf will not think twice to kill them." South African Monique Strydom wrote in her diary (recently published in Shooting the Moon) on June 19, 2000, day 58 of her abduction: "I hate them. I hate them a thousand times. I hate them for what they are doing to us ... to our families ... our parents ... for everything they have taken away from us. I hate...
...Philippines, and anyone who has visited its idyllic resorts, the episode was shockingly familiar. A little more than a year ago, the same group of Muslim rebels kidnapped 21 people, including 9 Malaysians, 8 Europeans, 2 South Africans and 2 Filipinos, from the eastern Malaysian diving resort of Sipadan. Over the following four months, they auctioned them off for a whispered total of up to $25 million in ransom money. Bad enough that it happened again: even more frightening, it was clear from day one of the most recent crisis that the resolution would be swifter and a lot more...