Surrounded Muslim extremists escaped an army siege during a bloody rebel surprise attack yesterday and fled to the jungle with several hostages, including three Americans, said Phillipine military sources.
Brigadier General Edilberto Adan said 60 Abu Sayyaf rebels who were surrounded in a hospital used hostages as human shields to escape as 100 other guerrillas attacked soldiers from nearby jungle, inflicting heavy casualties.
"Fresh terrorist troops under cover of darkness used diversionary tactics to distract the troops," Adan told reporters yesterday. He said his men limited their fire for fear of hitting hostages.
The badly decomposing bodies of two hostages were found yesterday outside Lamitan, said police Captain Hadji Omar Dalawis. One, which had been beheaded, was identified as Armando Bayona, a security guard at a beach resort where the guerrillas seized 20 hostages a week ago.
Based on the advanced state of decay, they were believed to have been killed before Saturday, when the rebels invaded Lamitan, said Delawis.
The military said 12 soldiers had been killed since fighting first began Friday morning, with dozens wounded. The dead included an army captain in an armored personnel carrier hit by a rocket.
Five of 20 hostages seized from the western Philippine resort on May 27 escaped yesterday during the guerrillas' chaotic flight. Four had escaped Saturday.
Adan said 11 of the 20 -- including the three Americans -- were with the rebels on Basilan island, 900km south of the capital, Manila. The island measures 3km in width and 5km in length.
He said the Abu Sayyaf also abducted a doctor, his wife and others when they invaded the Lamitan hospital early Saturday.
"There were no reports of any of the hostages held being injured," he said. "We don't know where they are going."
Hostages who escaped the ordeal yesterday told stories of horror and abject fear.
"We lived from explosion to explosion, fearing the next one would kill us all," said Aurora Samson, a 60-year-old teacher. "It was a nightmare. Because of the volume of gunfire, I thought there would be no tomorrow."
She said the 27 hostages in the same room with her and her granddaughter hid under beds and huddled on the urine-soaked floor of a concrete-walled bathroom in the bullet-scarred, debris-cluttered hospital.
Father Rene Enriquez, 39, a priest who escaped yesterday, said the Abu Sayyaf kept him in a room with three Americans -- Guillermo Sobero and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.
He recalled that Gracia Burnham approached him and said: "Are you a priest? Can you pray for us so we will be saved?"
"I will pray," said Enriquez.
"Her voice was shaking," said Enriquez. "I saw fear in their faces."
He said that the Burnhams were near tears and Sobero was hugging another hostage. Enriquez said he gave Sobero a soft drink.
Hospital administrator Antonio Aguilera said at least four hospital staffers were missing, including two nurses, a midwife and an accounting clerk. He had not yet been able to do a head count on patients.
Teresa Ganzon, one of the resort hostages who escaped yesterday, asked the government to halt the attack.
"I'm appealing to the government to stop the military operation and look for another solution to the problem. The hostages will have a hard time because they know nothing about the jungle," said Ganzon.
President Gloria Arroyo yesterday repeated her no-ransom policy:
"We will negotiate for their unconditional release, but no ransom. Negotiation is always part of military action, to convince them the alternative is worse. Die now or face due process later."
On Saturday, she issued a stern warning to the besieged rebels.
"You have nowhere else to run and it would be best for you to release those whom you've kidnapped," said Arroyo. "You're just one more bullet."
Alton Angeles, a former town councilor in Lamitan, said fighting raged until about 3am yesterday and then stopped.
"It subsided and when the sun went up and smoke cleared, the rebels were no longer there," said Angeles.
He said he saw four dead, likely Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, around the hospital.
Most residents still in Lamitan yesterday supported the military but criticized its tactics. Some said the soldiers left the back of the hospital and church compound unguarded, giving the rebels an opportunity to escape.
Basilan provincial Governor Wahad Akbar blamed the military for the escape.
"I warned the army last night to watch out because [the guerrillas] will be able to slip through the cordon," Akbar told RMN radio yesterday. "I can see the morale of the Abu Sayyaf group is very high and the morale of the soldiers very weak. When their morale is low, security will get weaker."
The Abu Sayyaf seized 10 foreign tourists about a year ago from a Malaysian resort.
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