Post by Willow on Jun 14, 2016 16:30:36 GMT 9.5
Nothing more than violent sadistic criminals
Soldiers in the Philippines were last night searching for the remains of a Canadian man whom Islamist fighters claimed to have beheaded hours after a deadline for a $9.2m ransom was missed.
A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group told local media outlets that it had killed Robert Hall, 50, a yachtsman from Calgary, on the island of Jolo in the remote southeast of the country. The Philippine army, which has been trying to locate Mr Hall since another Canadian hostage kidnapped with him was beheaded, said that it had yet to confirm the report.
Mr Hall was killed by an extreme Islamist militia which for two decades has been kidnapping people from its bases in Jolo and the neighbouring island of Basilan and demanding payment for their release. It is believed to be holding hostages from Japan, the Netherlands and Norway.
Mr Hall was kidnapped last September from a luxury yachting resort near Davao, on the large southern island of Mindanao. There was no news last night about two other captives seized at the same time: his Filipina girlfriend, Marites Flor, 40, and Kjartan Sekkingstad, 56, the Norwegian manager of the resort.
In late April Abu Sayyaf beheaded John Ridsdel, 68, a Canadian mining executive, after a ransom demand deadline expired.
Its original demands were for 1 billion pesos per hostage, the equivalent of $30.4 million. This was later reduced to 300 million pesos.
Hours before yesterday’s 3pm deadline, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, based in Manila, published interviews with the captives, conducted by telephone, in which they pleaded to be saved.
“My condition is pretty bad,” said Mr Hall, a former welder and insurance salesman who sold his property to buy a yacht and sail the world. “We have been starved, our sleep is deprived and they threaten to beat me.
“To the Philippine government, please get us all out of here. We hope the Philippine government will do what they can to get us out of here. If Duterte [the Philippine president-elect] wants to help us, help us to get out of here.”
Ms Flor said: “They are beating us, they are slapping me. Please help us. We struggle every day. I’m the only one who understands what they are saying and I could hear their plan to behead us.”
Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, has been adamant in his refusal to exchange money for the lives of hostages. At the G7 summit in Japan last month he pushed for a strong statement from world leaders to make clear their collective position that compromising with hostage takers, under any circumstances, would serve only to increase the likelihood of further kidnappings.
“Canada does not and will not pay ransom to terrorists, directly or indirectly, and there are very direct and clear reasons for this,” he said.
John Boehm, his chief negotiator at the G7, added: “By paying ransom you are aiding and abetting terrorists. Paying ransom for Canadians would endanger the lives of the millions of Canadians who live, work and travel around the world.”
Abu Sayyaf — which means “bearer of the sword” — was a small and obscure group of Islamic students and occasional bank robbers until 2000, when they achieved a remarkable coup. Using small, fast motorboats they kidnapped 21 western and Asian tourists from the luxury island diving resort of Sipadan in Malaysia. After six months of failed rescue attempts and shambolic negotiations, they released their hostages for a payment of $25 million.
Emboldened by their success, they have continued to mount raids on soft targets across the region.
They have lost leaders and foot soldiers to bullets, bombs and prison cells; have gained ground and lost it, clinging on in the malarial jungles of the Sulu archipelago against air assaults and land offensives by the Philippine armed forces and their American military helpers — all the while carrying out scores more kidnappings and killings.
The most ghastly was in 2004 when a bomb was detonated on a passenger ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116 people. It was the world’s worst act of maritime terrorism.
In 2014 a German couple who had been snatched from their yacht were released in return for a payment of $7.4 million.
That same year Abu Sayyaf leaders declared their allegiance to Islamic State, but it is not clear to what extent the two organisations are co-operating or whether the statement was anything more than a publicity stunt intended to capitalise on the notoriety of the jihadist organisation.
Abu Sayyaf was originally a splinter group of the larger guerilla armies fighting for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. Since 2000, however, it has given the impression of being more interested in violence, money and in dramatic, attention-grabbing gestures than in religious and political struggle.
About 5,400 Philippine troops have been deployed in the fight against Abu Sayyaf.
Soldiers in the Philippines were last night searching for the remains of a Canadian man whom Islamist fighters claimed to have beheaded hours after a deadline for a $9.2m ransom was missed.
A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group told local media outlets that it had killed Robert Hall, 50, a yachtsman from Calgary, on the island of Jolo in the remote southeast of the country. The Philippine army, which has been trying to locate Mr Hall since another Canadian hostage kidnapped with him was beheaded, said that it had yet to confirm the report.
Mr Hall was killed by an extreme Islamist militia which for two decades has been kidnapping people from its bases in Jolo and the neighbouring island of Basilan and demanding payment for their release. It is believed to be holding hostages from Japan, the Netherlands and Norway.
Mr Hall was kidnapped last September from a luxury yachting resort near Davao, on the large southern island of Mindanao. There was no news last night about two other captives seized at the same time: his Filipina girlfriend, Marites Flor, 40, and Kjartan Sekkingstad, 56, the Norwegian manager of the resort.
In late April Abu Sayyaf beheaded John Ridsdel, 68, a Canadian mining executive, after a ransom demand deadline expired.
Its original demands were for 1 billion pesos per hostage, the equivalent of $30.4 million. This was later reduced to 300 million pesos.
Hours before yesterday’s 3pm deadline, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, based in Manila, published interviews with the captives, conducted by telephone, in which they pleaded to be saved.
“My condition is pretty bad,” said Mr Hall, a former welder and insurance salesman who sold his property to buy a yacht and sail the world. “We have been starved, our sleep is deprived and they threaten to beat me.
“To the Philippine government, please get us all out of here. We hope the Philippine government will do what they can to get us out of here. If Duterte [the Philippine president-elect] wants to help us, help us to get out of here.”
Ms Flor said: “They are beating us, they are slapping me. Please help us. We struggle every day. I’m the only one who understands what they are saying and I could hear their plan to behead us.”
Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, has been adamant in his refusal to exchange money for the lives of hostages. At the G7 summit in Japan last month he pushed for a strong statement from world leaders to make clear their collective position that compromising with hostage takers, under any circumstances, would serve only to increase the likelihood of further kidnappings.
“Canada does not and will not pay ransom to terrorists, directly or indirectly, and there are very direct and clear reasons for this,” he said.
John Boehm, his chief negotiator at the G7, added: “By paying ransom you are aiding and abetting terrorists. Paying ransom for Canadians would endanger the lives of the millions of Canadians who live, work and travel around the world.”
Abu Sayyaf — which means “bearer of the sword” — was a small and obscure group of Islamic students and occasional bank robbers until 2000, when they achieved a remarkable coup. Using small, fast motorboats they kidnapped 21 western and Asian tourists from the luxury island diving resort of Sipadan in Malaysia. After six months of failed rescue attempts and shambolic negotiations, they released their hostages for a payment of $25 million.
Emboldened by their success, they have continued to mount raids on soft targets across the region.
They have lost leaders and foot soldiers to bullets, bombs and prison cells; have gained ground and lost it, clinging on in the malarial jungles of the Sulu archipelago against air assaults and land offensives by the Philippine armed forces and their American military helpers — all the while carrying out scores more kidnappings and killings.
The most ghastly was in 2004 when a bomb was detonated on a passenger ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116 people. It was the world’s worst act of maritime terrorism.
In 2014 a German couple who had been snatched from their yacht were released in return for a payment of $7.4 million.
That same year Abu Sayyaf leaders declared their allegiance to Islamic State, but it is not clear to what extent the two organisations are co-operating or whether the statement was anything more than a publicity stunt intended to capitalise on the notoriety of the jihadist organisation.
Abu Sayyaf was originally a splinter group of the larger guerilla armies fighting for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. Since 2000, however, it has given the impression of being more interested in violence, money and in dramatic, attention-grabbing gestures than in religious and political struggle.
About 5,400 Philippine troops have been deployed in the fight against Abu Sayyaf.