Philippine Muslim Rebels Abduct 36

Muslim extremists have seized 36 Filipinos and beheaded at least four, apparently to punish the military for its ongoing offensive, officials said Friday.

The Abu Sayyaf’s attack Thursday night on a village on the southern Philippine island of Basilan was the biggest since May 27, when the group raided a beach resort and seized 20 hostages, including three Americans.

The latest raid demonstrated that the Abu Sayyaf remains capable of causing serious problems in the unstable southern region despite a government offensive to crush a movement that it claims is motivated only by banditry.

The Abu Sayyaf says it wants an independent Muslim state to be carved out of the southern Philippines, a mostly Muslim region of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation. The group is believed to number about 1,100 fighters.

The army so far has come up short of stopping the Abu Sayyaf, although President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Friday that soldiers had pressured the militants so severely that that they had to strike back with “retaliatory action or diversionary action.”

Soldiers and police said they recovered four decapitated bodies early Friday as they chased members of the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan. TV footage showed a schoolhouse that had been burned in a village on the outskirts of the town of Lamitan and four bodies that had been taken to a funeral home.

“All were found dead--beheaded,” said the military’s deputy chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim.

Lamitan’s police chief, Inspector Omar Adjid Dalawis, put the initial number of captives at 36. Calimlim said 11 hostages were freed in the morning to relay the Abu Sayyaf’s demand that the army end its campaign to eradicate the group.

Among the hostages the Abu Sayyaf seized in May were Martin and Gracia Burnham, a missionary couple from Wichita, Kan. The group claims to have beheaded a third American, Guillermo Sobero of Corona. Sobero’s remains have not been found.