7 quarry workers seized in Basilan

Suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas kidnapped seven quarry workers in Basilan where rebel attacks have continued despite a government crackdown, officials said yesterday.

The construction workers were returning to their office on a dump truck after hauling sand from a beach when they were stopped and led away by masked gunmen on Monday near a farming village in Tuburan, Basilan, Marine Lt. Col. Leonard Vincent Teodoro said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

A police search was under way, regional police chief Bensali Jabarani said.

The kidnappings may have been meant to divert the attention of the Marines, who were conducting anti-crime and counter-insurgency operations in two nearby areas at the time of the abduction, Teodoro said.

Jabarani blamed the kidnappings on MILF rebels, but Eid Kabalu, the front’s spokesman, denied their guerrillas were involved.

Teodoro said the identity of the kidnappers remained uncertain but they were likely from the MILF or the smaller, but more violent al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf.

Commodore Alexander Pama, chief of Naval Forces Western Mindanao, though believes that the seven workers were not kidnapped but merely taken as “human shields” following a firefight in a military detachment.

“When we ran after them, they took the workers because they were already feeling the pressure,” he said, adding that Tuburan Mayor Kallahal Durie promised to help seek the workers’ release.

President Arroyo has expressed anger over a rise in kidnappings in Basilan and nearby islands and ordered police and the military to step up their crackdown.

Although it has long been crippled by US-backed military offensives, the Abu Sayyaf continues to be a threat in Basilan. – AP, James Mananghaya and Cecille Suerte Felipe