Philippine troops rescue two abducted Indonesian sailors on December 22. (Photo: AFP)Hanoi (VNA) – Philippine forces rescued two of three Indonesianhostages after a gunbattle with their captors from the Muslim militant groupAbu Sayyaf on Jolo island, the Philippines’s Sulu province on December 22.
The pair, Maharudin Bin Lunani (aged 48), and Samiun bin Maneu (aged 26), were amongthree Indonesian fishermen abducted in September at gunpoint by theransom-seeking militants off Malaysia’s Sabah state and taken to their junglebase in Sulu province.
The rescue of the Indonesians came after the military inflicted successivebattle defeats recently to the Abu Sayyaf, which is blacklisted as a terroristorganisation by the US and the Philippines.
The Abu Sayyaf emerged in the late 1980s as an offshoot of the decades-longMuslim separatist insurgency in the south of the largely Roman Catholic nation.After losing its commanders early in battle, the Abu Sayyaf rapidly degeneratedinto a small but brutal group blamed for ransom kidnappings, beheadings andother acts of banditry. Most of its militant factions have pledged allegianceto the Islamic State group./.
VNA
