No Trace Found of 21 Abducted on Malaysia Isle

In this region shared by three nations--speckled with thousands of islands and crisscrossed by traders, migrants, pirates and smugglers--21 hostages and the armed assailants who kidnapped them appeared Tuesday to have vanished.

After a fruitless two-day international search, military officials and Muslim rebel leaders said they remained unsure about who abducted 21 people from a Malaysian resort and about where the hostages were taken.

A small Philippine Muslim extremist group that is holding hostages of its own claimed responsibility for the abductions that occurred Sunday, but it later backed off. Meanwhile, the search continued in the seas surrounding the southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The kidnapping ordeal began Sunday night. Visitors to Sipadan Island, one of the world’s top diving resorts, saw their vacations disintegrate into terror when six armed assailants stormed the beaches and abducted 21 people, including at least 10 foreign tourists. A U.S. couple, James and Mary Murphy of Rochester, N. Y., escaped by refusing to swim to the kidnappers’ boat and then hiding in bushes.

A Philippine police intelligence report said Tuesday that the hostages had been taken on two fishing boats to Sulu province at the Philippines’ southern tip, about an hour from Sipadan. But Lt. Edgar Joseph Andres, whose navy plane conducted a three-hour search of the sparsely inhabited area, said he saw no sign of the hostages.

Early Tuesday, the Abu Sayyaf group--the Muslim rebels under siege for holding 27 Filipinos hostage for five weeks--claimed responsibility. But later its spokesman, Abu Ahmad, said he was not certain the group was involved.

“I can’t give you a right answer at this moment,” he told a radio station.

A waitress who escaped the abduction added weight to the belief that Muslim rebels were responsible.

Jeneth Cagaanan, 27, said one of the assailants wore a vest with the initials “MNLF,” which stand for the Moro National Liberation Front.

Once the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group, the MNLF signed a peace accord in 1996. But some disgruntled members now belong to other Muslim rebel groups.