PHILLIPINES: Philippine forces yesterday sealed escape routes of Muslim rebels blamed for the deaths of two hostages, including a US missionary. They also tightened security in surrounding areas to stop any attempt to seize fresh hostages.
"We will not let them get away with this," regional military commander Maj Gen Ernesto Carolina told reporters as hundreds of soldiers scoured the jungles of Zamboanga del Norte on southern Mindanao island for Abu Sayyaf guerrillas linked to Osama bin Laden.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered "search and destroy" operations against the Abu Sayyaf after two hostages held by the gang for over a year, American missionary Mr Martin Burnham and Philippine nurse Ms Deborah Yap, were killed in gunfire during a military rescue raid on Friday.
Mr Burnham's wife Gracia, also a hostage, survived with a bullet wound to her leg and is to leave for the US on Monday to rejoin her family.
A Manila television commentator said the deaths of the hostages were a blow to the Philippines' image at a time when it was seeking to attract investors and tourists but other analysts appeared unperturbed.
Maj Gen Carolina ordered naval gunboats to step up patrols off the Zamboanga del Norte coast to prevent the Abu Sayyaf from escaping to nearby islands.
Police said they had also ordered their units in nearby populated centres to watch out for suspicious people in case they turned out to be rebels looking for new hostages to snatch. Ms Arroyo had said the Philippines military would be under no constraints now the rebels had no more hostages.
Regarded as the most violent of the Muslim separatist groups, the Abu Sayyaf was founded in the early 1990s by young Muslim ideologues who preached a vision of a separate Islamic state.
The group continues to claim to fight for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines but pursues kidnap for ransom as its main activity.
The deaths of Mr Burnham (43) and Ms Yap (45) brought a grim end to the longest hostage drama in the Philippines involving foreign captives. Abducted in May of last year, Mr Burham and his wife had spent a year and 11 days in captivity.
Ms Arroyo said on Saturday that she was concerned the Abu Sayyaf's top commanders might try to flee the country and urged neighbouring Muslim countries Malaysia and Indonesia to arrest them if they landed on their shores.