Philippine authorities yesterday confirmed that Muslim extremist guerrillas had beheaded a second Canadian hostage, as they defended their inability to save him, despite months of pursuit.
The Abu Sayyaf, a small group of Islamic militants based on remote and mountainous southern islands that specializes in kidnappings-for-ransom, killed Robert Hall after its demands for 300 million pesos (US$6.5 million) by Monday were not met.
“We strongly condemn the brutal and senseless murder of Mr Robert Hall, a Canadian national, after being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu for the past nine months,” presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said in a statement.
Photo: militant video via AP Video
A military statement confirmed that a severed head, believed to be Hall’s, was found near a cathedral on Jolo, the main island in the Sulu archipelago that is one of the Abu Sayyaf’s strongholds.
In announcing on Monday night that he feared Hall had been killed, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed outrage, while maintaining that ransoms should not be paid.
“The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder,” Trudeau said.
Hall, a retiree, was among four people abducted in September last year from yachts at a tourist resort on Samal island, about 500km to the west of Sulu.
Another Canadian kidnapped with him, John Ridsdel, was beheaded in April after a similar ransom demand of 300 million pesos was not paid.
The fates of the two other people abducted at the Samal resort — Hall’s Philippine girlfriend, Marites Flor, and Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad — were unknown yesterday, but the Abu Sayyaf had also previously demanded ransoms for them.
Muslim rebels have been waging a separatist insurgency in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines since the 1970s and the conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
The Abu Sayyaf is a network of a few hundred Islamic militants that broke away from the main rebel groups in the early 1990s, evolving into a radical offshoot focused heavily on kidnapping locals and foreigners in largely succesful bids to extort money.
Its leaders have declared allegiance to the Islamic State group that holds territory in Iraq and Syria, but security analysts believe it is chiefly interested in ransom rather than religious war.
While having only a relatively small number of armed followers, it has proved extremely resilient against repeated military offensives.
From 2002 to 2014, the US deployed special forces in the southern Philippines to train Philippine troops to combat the Abu Sayyaf, a move which led to the killing or arrest of many Abu Sayyaf leaders.
However, the Abu Sayyaf went on a sustained kidnapping spree after the US troops left.
It has abducted 44 Philippine citizens and foreigners since the beginning of last year, according to Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a security intelligence group.
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