Gunmen yesterday abducted six Vietnamese sailors and shot another when a bulk carrier was intercepted in Philippine waters off a southern island stronghold of the militant Abu Sayyaf group, the Philippine Coast Guard said.
The cargo ship was bound for the Philippine’s Davao City in another part of Mindanao province, but was intercepted when passing through a strait off Basilan by 10 armed men who came aboard and took hostages.
“One of the crew was shot and was evacuated to a local hospital,” coast guard commander Jerome Cayabyab said.
He said the fate of the captives were uncertain after they were transferred to smaller, faster boats.
It was the second kidnapping incident in the south in a week.
The Abu Sayyaf, a militant group that swears allegiance to the Islamic State, on Monday said it kidnapped a German national.
The Philippine military said that a woman found dead in an abandoned yacht off an island near Basilan was believed to be his female companion.
The latest attack on commercial shipping occurred just hours after Philippine and Malaysian leaders agreed to step up maritime cooperation in their borders to stop piracy.
Abu Sayyaf militants have since March been intercepting slow-moving tug boats towing coal barges in waters near the borders of Malaysia and the Philippines, taking captive more than a dozen Indonesian and Malaysian sailors.
Though the group officially has a separatist agenda, it has become better know for banditry and tactics that have proved highly effective and earned large sums of money.
Several hostages had been freed, but experts say in those cases it is almost certain ransoms were paid.
Abu Sayyaf has beheaded two Canadian hostages this year.
It has 16 captives, including a Dutch, a German, five Malaysians, two Indonesians and seven Filipinos.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the missing sailors.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the