ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 25, 2012) – Philippine authorities on Monday said Abu Sayyaf militants have separated a Jordanian journalist from his two Filipino assistants two weeks after the trio sneaked into the troubled South to secretly film terror leaders tied to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya.
Police said Baker Atyani, Al-Arabiya’s bureau chief in Pakistan, and his crew Ramelito Vela and Rolando Letrero, are now being held against their will in the hinterlands of Sulu archipelago where the Abu Sayyaf is harbouring Indonesian and Malaysian JI members.
“According to our intelligence reports, Baker Atyani has been separated from his two Filipino assistants for reasons we still don’t know. We are monitoring the situation,” Sulu police chief Antonio Freyra told the Mindanao Examiner.
Atyani’s group arrived in Sulu from the southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga on June 11 after arranging a secret interview from Abu Sayyaf and other rebel leaders for a documentary film.
The trio left their hostel on June 12 with an Abu Sayyaf emissary and since then had not returned and were reported missing until Atyani phoned local government officials days later to say that he was filming terror leaders for an exclusive television documentary for the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya.
Among those he reportedly met were Abu Sayyaf leader Nadzmie Alih and other commanders of the country’s most notorious rebel group, which is still holding several foreigners, including an Australian adventurer, a Japanese treasure hunter and two Chinese iron ore traders kidnapped in Mindanao.
The Abu Sayyaf is also notorious for beheading Christians they kidnapped in Sulu and had killed dozens of innocent victims over the last decade.
Police said Atyani rejected security escorts shortly after their arrival and deceived local officials after he told them that he was shooting a documentary about Sulu’s culture and government projects in the province.
Atyani is known for interviewing Al-Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. (Mindanao Examiner)
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