ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 23, 2014) – Philippine police said gunmen abducted a woman and her daughter in Isabela City in the troubled southern province of Basilan.
Police said at least 10 gunmen in military uniform snatched the 45-year Dina Lim Irahan and Yahong Lim Tan, 19, late Thursday near the port area and dragged them to a waiting speedboat. The woman family owns the Dalby’s Videoke House in Isabela City.
No other details about the abduction was released by the police and no individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest abduction in Basilan, one of five provinces under the restive Muslim autonomous region where the Abu Sayyaf group is actively operating.
In March, five masked gunmen, believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, seized a 60-year school principal Benita Enriquez Latonio, of the Manggal Elementary School in Basilan’s Sumisip town and demanded the release of about two dozen Moro National Liberation Front rebels led by Commander Ugong who took part in the attacks in Zamboanga City in September last year that killed and wounded over 400 people.
Latonio was eventually freed days later after authorities rejected the Abu Sayyaf demand.
Authorities have repeatedly linked the Abu Sayyaf to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya which had been blamed in deadly attacks not only in the Philippines, but also in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in an effort to establish a regional Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia. (Mindanao Examiner)
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