Arroyo: Sayyaf killed Burnham

The trajectory of the bullets that killed Abu Sayyaf hostages Martin Burnham and Edibora Yap tend to show they were fired from the guns of the Islamist rebels, President Arroyo said yesterday, quoting a military report.

"The trajectory of the bullets was upward," she said.

However, she noted a slight inaccuracy in the drawing depicting the positions of government troops and the Abu Sayyaf in the June 7 encounter in Sirawai town, Zamboanga del Norte.

"It’s more sloping and (Abu Sayyaf spokesman) Abu Sabaya was in the lower part. The hostages and the four Abu Sayyaf who died were on the slope, and the soldiers were on the ridge," she said.

Quoting the military report, Mrs. Arroyo said the trajectory of the bullets that killed Burnham and Yap was upwards, indicating that they were fired from below the ridge where the Scout Rangers had swooped down on the Abu Sayyaf.

"That’s why our boys feel that Martin was killed from the bullet that came from below because the trajectory of the wound was upward. That’s what they told me," she said of the operation that also led to the rescue of the third hostage, Burnham’s wife Gracia, who was wounded in the leg.

Gracia, who was believed shielded by her husband during the firefight, is now back in her hometown in Wichita, Kansas.

Speaking at a press conference at the Rizal shrine in Calamba, Laguna, Mrs. Arroyo said government troops taking part in the rescue code named "Operation Daybreak" could not have possibly killed Martin and Edibora.

"You cannot tell, but as far as our boys are concerned, they were sniping," she said. "They were not doing rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. So they feel that the four Abu Sayyaf were killed because they targeted them," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo said she was aware as early as May 1 that the Abu Sayyaf had pierced the military dragnet in Basilan and had escaped to Sirawai.

"It’s just that I didn’t announce it," she said. "Now I can announce it. So I was asking (Armed Forces Southern Command chief Maj. Gen.) Nesty Carolina, ‘Can I reveal to them that the hostages are already there, can I reveal it?’," she said

"Because he knows what’s classified and what’s not. They said, ‘Maybe you could be more general and say there are operations going on in Sirawai."

Mrs. Arroyo said she has discussed with Armed Forces chief Gen. Roy Cimatu the promotion of the soldiers who had taken part in the rescue of Gracia Burnham.

On the other hand, Mrs. Arroyo said the government would pay part of the reward for the rescue of the hostages to the boy and his father who led the soldiers to the Abu Sayyaf camp in the jungles of Sirawai.

Mrs. Arroyo said it would be up to the US government if it would give them the $5 million reward it had announced for the rescue of the Burnham couple, missionaries of the New Tribes Mission.

Mrs. Arroyo said American military equipment like the spy planes helped the Filipino soldiers track down the Abu Sayyaf from the jungles of Basilan to the rain forest of Zamboanga del Norte.

"And they had this spy plane going around, according to Gracia, that spy plane drove them crazy," she said. "Because our soldiers knew where they were."

Mrs. Arroyo said US President George W. Bush was fully briefed about the details of Operation Daybreak from the planning stage to the time the Scout Rangers were fighting the Abu Sayyaf in Sirawai to try to rescue the Burnhams and Edibora.

"And that (Bush) was quite aware that the planning for that Operation Daybreak was joint," she said. "So he agreed that we must go on."

Mrs. Arroyo was in Calamba, Laguna yesterday for the celebration of the 141st birth anniversary of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.