A Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility today for abducting 20 people, including three Americans, from a luxury resort and issued what appeared to be a veiled threat against their safety.
The Phillippine government responded by launching a full-scale military search, ruling out any ransom and offering up to $2 million in rewards for information leading to the capture of those responsible. "The President decided to meet force by force," Rigoberto Tiglao, spokes man for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said after an emergency Cabinet meeting.
"The only kind of negotiation will be for the unconditional release of the hostages."
The rewards include $100,000 for each Abu Sayyaf leader and $20,000 for each member involved in the kidnapping.
Abu Sabaya, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf separatists - who last year kidnapped another group of foreign tourists - told radio RMN that the hostages had been divided into two groups of 10.
One of the groups, which he controls, includes the Americans and has been taken to Basilan province; the other has been handed over to another Abu Sayyaf faction and taken to nearby Sulu province.
"OK, I'll admit we took the hostages," said Sabaya, who appeared to be speaking by satellite telephone. "If you want to negotiate, it's up to you, we're not pushing for it."
Referring to Mr Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert from Oakland, California, who was held by Abu Sayyaf for eight months before the military freed him last month, Sabaya said: "What I can say is we should not compare Jeffrey because Jeffrey is a Muslim, so we hesitated to hurt him. Now, we have three Americans. It is hard for us to be shamed."
One of the Americans, Mr Martin Burnham, went on the radio to offer reassurances to relatives in the first contact since masked gunmen snatched the tourists in a raid on Sunday. "We are safe and we are appealing for a peaceful negotiations," Mr Burnham said. "They are treating us well."
Mr Burnham was captured with wife Gracia, and had flown to the resort on Saturday to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary. The other US citizen was identified as Guillermo Sobero, of Corona, California, who was to mark his 40th birthday on Tuesday.
At dawn on Sunday the group had dressed in military uniforms to get past security guards, ransacked the resort's white cottages on stilts and rounded up guests and resort workers. The Abu Sayyaf group seized 10 foreign tourists 13 months ago from a Malaysian resort. Most were released for large ransoms, reportedly paid by Libya.