US-trained troops raided a Philip-pine hide-out yesterday to end a year-long hostage crisis, freeing one American but triggering a gunfight that killed her husband. A Filipina nurse also held captive was reported shot and killed, but soldiers have yet to find her body.
The three -- missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kansas and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap -- were kidnapped in May 2001 by the Abu Sayyaf, a group of Muslim extremists linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Philippine soldiers supported by more than 1,000 US troops have been fighting the rebels in the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Officials said Martin Burnham was killed on the scene. Soldiers at the clash said Yap was killed by gunfire but that her body had not been recovered.
It was not immediately clear who shot the two.
Yap and the Burnhams were the last remaining captives after the guerrillas, infamous for beheading hostages, kidnapped dozens of people over the past year.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the "rescue mission has turned into a destroy mission" to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf whose forces are depleted to less than 100 fighters from about 1,000 after a year of army offensives.
Intense fighting started early in the afternoon and continued after nightfall between the guerrillas and the Philippine Light Reaction Company, an elite unit trained and outfitted by the US.
Four guerrillas were killed and several soldiers were wounded in the raid yesterday by elite US-trained commandos in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte. No US troops took part in the raid, Philippine commanders said.
Private First Class Rene Mabilog was with about 40 soldiers who clashed with the guerrillas. "We were following them since last night," Mabilog told reporters in a hospital where he was being treated for arm wounds. "There were about 30 of them." Mabilog said the guerrillas stopped to rest because it was raining heavily and the soldiers crept up to about 30m behind them. He said the fighting lasted about two hours.
He said the soldiers saw Gracia Burnham lying wounded on a river bank after the clash. He said she was evacuated by helicopter.
"I could see her face was happy but sometimes she would break into tears," he said. "She was clutching their pictures. She had many pictures in her bag that she would look at."
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