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MILF Says Sobero Executed By Abu Sayyaf
by Kazi Mahmood
KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (IslamOnline) - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Wednesday said it has confirmed that American hostage Guillermo Sobero is dead, executed by the Abu Sayyaf.
A ranking MILF official confirmed that Sobero's captors, somewhere in the municipality of Tuburan in Basilan, buried him last week.
Ustad Sharif Julabbi said Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) bandits, led by its spokesman, Abu Sabaya, on June 12th beheaded Sobero.
The Philippine government has yet to react to the MILF's confirmation of Sobero's death.
The information was reportedly relayed to the MILF by a reliable source, an ASG bandit who witnessed the execution. Julabbi also disclosed that another American hostage, Martin Burnham, suffered three gunshot wounds to the body but has recuperated from the wounds.
Julabbi claimed the ASG was forced to behead the victim since he was already dying of a "sickness". Press reports said the hostage was an acute diabetic and did not have any medication left. Sources said he was in terrible pain. Sobero reportedly ran out of insulin and had been further weakened by a leg wound.
Sabaya claimed last week that Sobero was beheaded as an "Independence Day gift" to Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, who has ordered government security forces to "crush" the ASG.
Sabaya's claim angered Arroyo, who lost her composure for the first time since taking power. The president went on a media rampage, urging the army to fight the terrorist group eye to eye and to "eliminate them from the surface of the earth".
Sobero was among 20 people, including 17 Filipinos and two other Americansl, abducted from the Dos Palmas Resort on May 27th and taken to Basilan, an island in the southern Philippines.
Since then, 11 hostages escaped or have been freed and rescued. The kidnappers have executed two of the Filipinos hostages.
So far military officials have refused to confirm reports of Sobero's death saying they will give official confirmation only when the victim's body is found.
Three weeks into the Basilan hostage crisis, the military declared that the 26 hostages still being held by the Abu Sayyaf would be rescued soon as the bandits had run out of hiding places.
The military says rescue of the hostages is imminent since the search for the bandits is concentrated in two areas on the island-province, some 860 km south of Manila. Eight battalions have been dispatched to Basilan to seek and eliminate the bandits, who have been on the run constantly since arriving from Palawan.
Government troops and the Sayyaf have been involved firefights in Lamitan, Tuburan and Lantawan municipalities, in addition to several villages in Tipo-Tipo and Maluso.
The military drew flak after the bandits managed to sneak out of Lamitan after being surrounded by hundreds of government troops in a hospital and church compound.
Basilan is an island of mountainous jungle, largely inhabited by Muslims and a known stronghold of the ASG, which enjoys strong local support.
On the other hand, Khaddafy Abubakar Janjalani, a Sayyaf member, reported to have died during an earlier firefight in Basilan two weeks ago, sent a letter to Arroyo.
Khaddafy Janjalani is alive, says his older brother Hector from his detention cell in Camp Crame. Hector said Khadaffy was worried he might have been killed because of events in Basilan. He said he recently spoke to Khaddafy on the phone.
In his letter to Arroyo, Janjalani said the Abu Sayyaf expected the Philippine government to react positively so that this crisis could end in the soonest possible time. The letter was sent as a gesture of goodwill in order to try solving the problems through negotiations, Janjalani said.
Janjalani was reportedly killed in an army attack on the Abu Sayyaf two weeks ago. His elder brother Hector was arrested in Quiapo last December. Janjalani is facing a string of criminal charges in Zamboanga, Basilan and Manila.
Their oldest brother, the late Ustadz Abdurajack Janjalani, an Islamic scholar who fought in Afghanistan, founded the Abu Sayyaf in the late 1980s. A police agent killed him in 1998. Another brother died in a clash with troops in 1996. Khaddafy, the youngest among four Janjalani brothers, became the head of Abu Sayyaf in 1999.
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