philippines withrew tropps from iraq last NOV -- and here is the new story:
Muslim Radicals Kill Guards, Hole Up in Manila Jail
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:09 p.m. ET
MANILA (Reuters) - Islamic radicals were holding out at a police camp in Manila on Monday after snatching weapons from their guards while being served breakfast and shooting dead two of them in an escape attempt, police said.
Police officials said the prisoners, including several suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group, had occupied the second storey of a four-storey police building in the suburb of Taguig and could be holding fellow prisoners hostage.
One prisoner was killed in the gunbattle and two guards were wounded, Manila police chief Avelino Razon told reporters.
The building had been surrounded by police and SWAT teams as the prisoners waited for a Muslim congressman and the governor of the Muslim autonomous area in the southern Philippines to listen to their demands.
``We believe they are Abu Sayyaf,'' said Razon, referring to an Islamic militant group which has links with the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
He said two guards were killed after the prisoners grabbed a handgun from one of them as they delivered breakfast early on Monday morning. Police had earlier said three guards were killed.
Police said the prisoners appeared to be led by Alhamser Limbong, alias ``Kosovo,'' who is on trial for the kidnapping of tourists and workers from the Dos Palmas beach resort in 2001 and who is suspected of beheading one of the American hostages.
He has also been charged with helping to carry out a bomb attack on a ferry near Manila last year that killed at least 116 people.
Police said there were about 130 suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf out of 400 prisoners being held at the camp, although only about 10 appeared to be involved in the escape attempt.
Around 100 prisoners were still on the second storey.
``Not all of them are part of this plan,'' Razon told television. ``A large proportion of them would like to surrender.''
Police helicopters were overhead and an armored personnel carrier was parked alongside the building.
The militants contacted local radio by telephone and demanded to speak with a Muslim congressman, the governor of the Muslim autonomous region and with Robin Padilla, a local film star popular among Muslims because he has converted to Islam.
Witnesses said the congressman and Governor Parouk Hussein had arrived at the camp.
The Philippines is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic but has a small Muslim minority. Most of the country's Muslims live in the south of the archipelago and some Islamic groups have been fighting for independence for decades.
The Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for three coordinated bomb attacks in Manila and southern Mindanao island on Feb. 14 that killed 13 people and wounded more than 100.
The attacks came as the Philippine military fought Abu Sayyaf militants in the group's southern stronghold of Jolo island in the worst fighting the country has seen in two years.
nytimes.com |
