sulawesigirl4
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
I am shocked and saddened to share the news that a missionary and a nurse taken hostage over a year ago by Filipino rebels believed to have links to al Qaida have been killed in the crossfire of a rescue attempt. The missionaries involved were part of the same organization that my parents work with and geographic similarity notwithstanding, it is all to easy for me to imagine any number of my friends still in SE Asia being involved in something like this.
Two Hostages Killed in Philippines
Fri Jun 7, 6:58 AM ET
By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP) - One U.S. hostage died and another was shot in the leg but rescued Friday when Philippine troops launched a strike on their Muslim extremist kidnappers, military officials said.
A Filipino nurse held hostage with the couple was shot in the rescue operation and died of her wounds shortly afterward, said Philippine Gen. Narciso Abaya.
Martin Burnham, kidnapped more than a year ago along with his wife Gracia by the Abu Sayyaf extremist group, was killed by a gunshot during the raid near the town of Siraway, said Abaya, the Philippine deputy military chief of staff.
Burnham's wife was being operated on in a military hospital in the southern city of Zamboanga, said Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, commander of Philippine forces in the south.
"She's here already," Carolina told reporters. "She is being operated on. It's a gunshot wound. She's talking. She's out of danger."
Abaya said four of the kidnappers were killed and several soldiers wounded in the operation. Philippine officers said U.S. helicopters, part of a 1,000-strong contingent of U.S. troops advising Filipinos fighting the Abu Sayyaf, were retrieving more wounded from the clash scene.
Mrs. Burnham was conscious and talking to U.S. military doctors at the Philippine Southern Command Hospital with an intravenous drip attached to her arm.
Seven wounded Filipino soldiers lay near Mrs. Burnham, who was looking flushed and weak. Doctors said a bullet passed cleanly through her right thigh.
"The terrorists will not be allowed to get away with this," said Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites). "I commiserate with the Burnham and Yap families. This has been a long and painful trial for them, for our government, for our country.
"Our soldiers tried their best to hold their fire for safety," Macapagal Arroyo said. "We shall not stop until the Abu Sayyaf is finished."
Philippine officers said hundreds of elite troops equipped with night vision goggles and backed by U.S. surveillance technology launched the attack to free the Wichita, Kan., missionaries Friday as part of an extended rescue operation that has been going on for almost two weeks.
The Philippine military said intelligence showed that members of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group infamous for beheading hostages, were holed up with at least one of the Burnhams near the village in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte.
The Light Reaction Company, a stealthy U.S.-trained unit equipped with silencers, night vision equipment and high-tech headsets, fanned out secretly throughout the area of coconut groves and farms in recent days after solid indications that at least one of the Burnhams was held near there.
Philippine officers said the guerrillas evaded the troops for days but were slowed down by heavy rains Friday, allowing the soldiers to catch them.
The Burnhams were kidnapped May 27, 2001 by members of the Abu Sayyaf. Yap was kidnapped days later when the Abu Sayyaf, with the Burnhams in tow, raided a hospital in the southern town of Lamitan to seize hospital staff and medicine to treat their wounded.
The guerrillas kidnapped 18 other people along with the Burnhams, including 17 Filipinos and Corona, Calif., resident Guillermo Sobero.
Sobero was beheaded by the guerrillas in June 2001, according to U.S. and Filipino officials.
The Abu Sayyaf fighters are thought to number only 60 or so from an original force of 1,000 after a year of army offensives. The group says it is fighting to carve a Muslim state out of the southern Philippines, and it is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden al-Qaida terrorism network.
U.S. Green Berets, pilots, military engineers and support staff are in the southern Philippines, training local forces to better fight the Abu Sayyaf.
Martin Burnham's parents, Paul and Oreta Burnham, received the news of his death at their home in Rosehill, Kan.
"The Lord will give us the strength to get through this," Burnham said when he came to the door. He said Arroyo had called him.
Martin and Gracia Burnham's three children were with their other grandparents, Norvin and Betty Jo Jones of Cherokee Village, Ark.