ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Government troops killed Monday three Abu Sayyaf bandits who held captive a wife of a Scottish national in Basilan province and rescued the hostage victim, officials said.
The rescued businesswoman, Luisa Galvez-Morrison, an Army soldier and at least seven bandits were wounded in the gunbattle that raged in Sitio Bohe Peyat, Baiwas village, Sumisip town, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.
Three platoons of Army scout rangers were searching for gunmen reported by villagers when they stumbled on an undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf bandits, setting off a clash that killed three of the terrorists. The other bandits fled and troops later found Galvez abandoned at the scene of the battle, Cabangbang said.
"The soldiers were unaware that the Abu Sayyaf men were holding a hostage in the area," Cabangbang said.
The stunned Morrison, who was slightly injured on her leg, was taken to a military camp, he said.
Cabangbang said sub-leaders Radzmer Temmeng Jannatul and a certain Julhayver alias Abu Kik lead the bandits.
Basilan is the birthplace and a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group.
Morrison, 34, was seized last September 4 by three gunmen who posed as customers at her beauty salon in Ipil town in Zamboanga Sibugay province, police said.
The victim who is married to a Scottish engineer is a resident of Neriscom Subdivision, Magdaup village, Ipil municipality.
Morrison had worked for several years in Malaysia before she moved last year to Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay and opened up her business, the RL Salon and Spa.
Desperate for funds, the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf has resorted to kidnappings, targeting people who could hardly pay ransom. Last year, the group carried out at least 11 kidnappings and raised about $704,000 in ransom, according to a confidential government report seen by The Associated Press in February.
They killed at least six hostages whose families failed to pay ransom last year, the report said.
The Abu Sayyaf, which has close to 400 fighters with more than 300 firearms, remains without a central leader after several of its top commanders were killed or captured by troops in recent years. Its two biggest factions are based in Basilan and in nearby Sulu province.
The Abu Sayyaf still holds two Americans of Philippine descent, an Indian, a Malaysian and a Japanese convert to Islam.
Gunmen on a motorcycle, meanwhile, snatched a seven-year-old child from her horrified mother Monday in North Cotabato, a southern province where other Muslim rebel groups and kidnap gangs are active.
The mother was walking with her daughter near their home in Pikit town when the two gunmen approached and grabbed the child from her, telling her it was a kidnapping, North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Mendoza said.
The kidnappers fled with the child toward a marshy area where Muslim guerrillas and outlaws are based. Police and soldiers were searching for them.
Gunmen disguised as policemen also abducted a farm supply store owner in southern Cagayan de Oro City on Monday.
The kidnappers barged into the store, disarmed a guard and took Manuel Boniao at gunpoint.
Police Superintendent Roy Magsalay, station commander of Agora Police Station, said Boniao managed to call his wife, who was in a separate office and who lost consciousness upon seeing her husband forcibly taken by the three suspects.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, police said. (With AP/Annabelle L. Ricalde of Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro/Sunnex)
