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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
SULU: Muslim rebels freed before dawn Friday two
Marine intelligence agents they had seized on the southern
Philippine island of Basilan.
The military’s Western Mindanao Command said
the two soldiers—Corporals Jesse Duatin and Bernard Alcabasa, not
Bernard Alcanta as reported by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—were
released without any condition. The MILF rebels had proposed a
“prisoner swap.”
The MILF gunmen held the two soldiers who were
trying to negotiate for the surrender of a senior rebel leader in
Basilan, where security forces are fighting Abu Sayyaf militants.
The rebels, however, demanded that the Marines
tell the military leadership to free an Abu Sayyaf militant, Sali
Alih, who was arrested last week by policemen and soldiers in
Basilan’s Lamitan City. Alih was implicated in the beheading of 14
Marines in fierce clashes last year in Al-Barka town, also in
Basilan.
The soldiers were trying to get rebel Hadji
Mas’ud alias Commander Long to surrender to them when the gunmen
seized them in Tipo-Tipo town.
“The two soldiers were freed after a
successful negotiation led by village leader Raisa Masud in Al-Barka
town,” said military spokesman Maj. Eugene Batara.
Batara did not give details of the negotiations,
but said the Abu Sayyaf prisoner will not be released. “We have
laws to follow here,” he added.
Batara said pursuit of the Abu Sayyaf will
continue in Basilan. “The operations against lawlessness will
continue,” he added.
Alih belongs to the group of Abu Sayyaf leader
Furuji Indama, blamed for a spate of attacks on military patrols in
Basilan.
Alih, a nephew of Mas’ud, was traveling on a
motorcycle with a companion when police and military forces captured
him. His companion was briefly held, but freed later by the police
for lack of evidence to link him to the Abu Sayyaf.
-- With Jefferson Antiporda
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