ZAMBOANGA -- The government ordered aggressive pursuit operations against kidnappers in Sulu and Basilan on Tuesday with the series of abductions allegedly perpetrated by Abu Sayyaf bandits in Mindanao.

Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Ronaldo Puno said security forces in the two provinces are already hot on the kidnappers’ trail following the abduction Tuesday of three factory workers in Basilan and the beheading Monday of a school principal in Sulu province.

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Puno said police and military forces are now positioned in Basilan to search and rescue Michael Tan, 27, Oscar Lu, 51, and Mark Singson, all workers of Basilan Hi-Tech Wood Craft Industry in Botong district, Maluso town.

The three were kidnapped early Tuesday, just hours after the severed head of school principal Gabriel Canizares was found in a sack that was left near a gasoline station in Jolo, the capital town of Sulu province.

The beheading of Canizares prompted the suspension of classes in both elementary and high school levels in Sulu, as teachers are asking the government to deploy more security forces to ensure their safety.

But Puno said Tuesday that he already instructed the police and military to be very aggressive in pursuing the al-Qaeda-linked bandits in both provinces.

"Denying the kidnappers the fruit of their crimes discourages them to commit (crimes) again in the future," Puno told reporters in a press briefing Tuesday.

Navy spokesman Edgard Arevalo also said that Marines are hot on tracks of the group responsible in the recent kidnapping incident in Basilan, while the provincial crisis management committee was already placed on heightened alert status.

Quoting 1st Marine Brigade Commander Eugenio Clemen, Arevalo said a company of Force Reconnaissance Marines and another Special Operations Platoon of Marines from the 1st Marine Battalion Landing Team were deployed “to pursue the unidentified kidnappers.”

“The Marines has so far recovered a fragmentation grenade believed to be of the kidnappers in an area where the abductors purportedly halted to rest in transit to the jungles,” said Arevalo.

“We hope to intercept or catch up with the kidnappers before they reach the mountains and immediately rescue the victims,” he added.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Western Mindanao Command chief Benjamin Dolorfino, for his part, ordered the pursuit operations after learning the incident.

Tan, Lu, and Singson were forcibly taken by more or less 30 heavily-armed men who stormed inside the compound of the plywood factory in Maluso town early Tuesday.

Senior Superintendent Abubakar Tulawie, Basilan police director, said the suspects were wearing camouflage uniform when they swooped down inside the compound by destroying the factory’s wooden fence.

He said that prior to the abduction of the three factory workers, residents in the area reported that they heard shots being fired in the vicinities of the factory.

Tulawie suspected that Abu Sayyaf bandits are involved in the kidnapping.

But military spokesman Major David Hontiveros refused to say if the Abu Sayyaf is involved in the Basilan attack, pending investigation.

He said that as of Tuesday afternoon, the kidnappers and hostages were moving on foot and authorities were tracking them. He said the gunmen, dragging along with them the hostages, fled towards the direction of Mahayahay village, also in Maluso town.

Basilan Vice Governor Al Rasheed Sakalahul suspected ransom was the motive for the attack.

As of this posting Tuesday, the regional peace and order council in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), chaired by Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, directed Basilan Governor Jum Akbar to immediately organize a crisis management committee to work out the release of the factory workers.

The Basilan provincial police said Tan’s father, Jorge, could have been the real target of the kidnappers.

The Tans and Lu are in the work craft industries and export their products to Metro Manila and Visayas.

Police have received unconfirmed reports that rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels could also be behind the kidnapping in Maluso to create diversion and “ease the pressure” government forces are exerting on the kidnappers of Irish missionary priest, Fr. Michael Sinnott.

Sinnott, who was kidnapped on October 11 from his convent in Pagadian City, is reportedly being held captive at the border of Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Lanao del Norte and Sultan Gumander, Lanao del Sur.

Those identified to be holding Sinnott were six commanders of the MILF, among them Aloy Alsree, chief of the front’s 113 Base Command. The Moro rebel group, however, denied involvement in the kidnapping.

The MILF is currently engaged in peace talks with the government on ending decades of a bloody Moro insurgency in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

The Abu Sayyaf, on the other hand, is suspected of receiving funds from al-Qaeda and is believed to have about 400 fighters. The group is notorious for bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. (Bong Garcia/VR/AP/PNA/Sunnex)