Philippine Rescuers Search Tunnel System

Philippine forces sprayed tear gas Sunday into a tunnel complex where Muslim extremists were believed to have hidden at least some of the 27 hostages they have held for six weeks, officials said.

Soldiers reported hearing a child’s voice and were cautiously searching the extensive tunnel system, believed to have been built by Japanese soldiers during World War II, spokesman Col. Hilario Atendido said.

Inside the tunnel, troops found children’s sandals, generators, weapons and 100 sacks of rice, but the rebels earlier seen fleeing into the tunnel apparently escaped through a side exit, military officials said.

The hostage situation on Basilan island is one of two ongoing in the southern Philippines. Both are blamed on the Abu Sayyaf, a loosely organized Muslim extremist group accused of numerous kidnappings and other attacks in southern Mindanao, one of the Philippines’ poorest regions. It is believed to have several hundred armed men.

The Abu Sayyaf is the smaller of two Muslim groups fighting for an independent Islamic nation in the south. The other group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said Sunday that it has indefinitely suspended peace talks because of recent military assaults on its camps.

The search of the tunnels came less than two days after troops overran the densely forested Abu Sayyaf rebel camp on the slopes of Mt. Ponoh Mahajid in an attempt to rescue the hostages, mostly children seized from two schools on March 20.

The rebels have demanded the release of three terrorists from U.S. jails, including Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center.

Meanwhile, a government negotiator said soldiers had surrounded Abu Sayyaf rebels holding 21 other captives, including 10 foreign tourists, but repeated his warning against military intervention.

The hostages, abducted from a Malaysian resort April 23, were being held in a mountainous area on the Philippine island of Jolo.