Focused Military Operations To Rescue Hostages from the terror group Abu Sayyaf

Focused military operations continues despite the threats of Abu Sayyaf to behead two foreign hostages if the terrorists’ deadline for ransom payment is not met.

Maj. Filemon Tan Jr, the spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom), said that the rescue mission will not stop. He said that the armed forces “will continue to conduct intensified focused military operations based on the available information to immediately rescue the kidnap victims.” he added that the operations to rescue the kidnapping victims and wipe out the terror group are continuing.

On May 13, a video is released by Abu Sayyaf and posted online by the SITE Intelligence Group showing that Canadian Robert Hall and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad are sourrounded by hooded armed men. They said that the ransom must be delivered on by June 13 or one of the hostages will be killed.

On April 25, Canadian John Ridsdel, a hostage of the terror group was beheaded after his family failed to deliver the demand of the terrorist worth P300 million ransom. The beheading of Ridsdel is “truly grievous” act, Sulu Sultan Ibrahim Bahjin said.

According to tan, the Intelligence information would be the key to locate the victims and their captives. Also Military units had been mobilized to increase efforts to finally rescue the hostages. Tan said that the objective is to safely extract the hostages from Abu Sayyaf camps through “focused military operations.”