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Friday, June 15, 2007
Rebels locate kidnapped Italian priest: general
MANILA -- Muslim rebels helping government troops look for Fr. Giancarlo Bossi have located a mountain area where the Italian priest is being held, and a suspected accomplice in the kidnapping has been arrested, a Marine general said Thursday.
The main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has a ceasefire agreement with the government, has denied any links to the gunmen who seized Bossi and has vowed to help rescue him.
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Unidentified gunmen snatched Bossi, 57, on Sunday after he said Mass in the coastal township of Payao, in Zamboanga Sibugay Province.
The rebels told the military that Bossi was seen Wednesday in the company of about 15 gunmen in a mountainous area in Naga town in the same southern province, Marine Major General Ben Dolorfino said.
"This is better now because at least there is a particular area where a search can be conducted," he told reporters in Manila. "What is important is to be able to contain the kidnappers in one area to limit the options available to them."
He said if the kidnappers are surrounded, they could abandon Bossi and escape, or try to negotiate.
Dolorfino declined to identify a man who was arrested in the village of Mamagon -- close to the mountain area where the Muslim rebels reported Bossi was being held -- for his "possible role" in the abduction, he said, adding that the man was being interrogated.
"We hope to get sufficient information from him that would lead to the solution of the case," he added.
He said Bossi's abductors were planning to transfer him to the custody of a top Abu Sayyaf leader in the province of Basilan, but the military has intensified its sea blockade to prevent this from happening.
"They were planning to transfer him yesterday (Wednesday), but it did not push through," he said.
Dolorfino said the main suspect in Bossi's kidnapping, Akkidin Abdusalam, has allegedly been involved in other kidnappings for ransom, including another Italian missionary, Giuseppe Pierantoni, who was snatched in October 2001.
Mohagher Iqbal, the chief MILF peace negotiator, has denied that Abdusalam, who is known also as Commander Kiddie, is an MILF member.
Iqbal said the MILF was helping to obtain Bossi's freedom under an agreement with the military to jointly conduct operations to interdict criminal gangs.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said Wednesday that additional troops, backed by naval and coast guard vessels, were deployed to the area, about 800 kilometers south of Manila.
US forces on counter-terrorism training exercises in the south deployed a surveillance aircraft to scour the seas because of the possibility that Bossi could have been taken farther south to Jolo island, an Abu Sayyaf lair, a senior Philippine official said. (AP/With Bong Garcia/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Davao. (June 15, 2007 issue)
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