By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines (AA) – Two weeks after a Daesh-linked group kidnapped three Indonesians in waters in the southern Philippines, five Malaysian tugboat workers have gone missing and are also feared taken, officials said Tuesday.
Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Malaysian authorities had recovered an unmanned tugboat and a barge drifting off Lahad Datu.
“When Malaysian authorities recovered the vessels... it was found out that its crew were already missing and believed to be abducted,” Dureza said.
The boat had been expected to arrive in Lahad Datu town east of the Malaysian state of Sabah.
The disappearance comes just two weeks after Abu Sayyaf militants kidnapped three Indonesians from a Malaysian trawler in the area and almost a month after they seven Indonesian tugboat crew.
The group has previously kidnapped 14 Indonesian tugboat crew members in separate attacks at sea off Sabah and brought them to Sulu province, but all were released after a ransoms is believed paid.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf group -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
Earlier this year, the group beheaded two Canadian hostages after ransoms failed to be paid. It has threatened to decapitate a Norwegian captured with them in September if a P300-million ($6 million) ransom demand is not met.