UPDATES WITH INDONESIAN CONFIRMATION
By Hader Glang and Ainur Rohmah
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines/ TUBAN, Indonesia (AA) – Three more Indonesians held captive by a Daesh-linked militant group in the Philippines’ majority Muslim south have been freed through the help of a fugitive Moro rebel leader, according to a presidential peace adviser.
Presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza said the sailors were turned over to the governor of Sulu island province, Abdusakur “Totoh” Tan II, before noon Sunday.
He added that Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chairman Nur Misuari “personally called me and informed me about another breakthrough in the efforts to recover hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf Group”.
“I coordinated with Gen de la Vega, of Task Force Sulu to facilitate smooth turnover,” the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Dureza as saying in a statement.
Last month, the MNLF helped negotiate the release of five Abu Sayyaf captives, including Norwegian national Kjartan Sekkingstad, three Indonesians fishermen and an Indonesian captain.
Earlier this year, the group beheaded two Canadian hostages abducted alongside Sekkingstad in September 2015 after million-dollar ransoms failed to be paid.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi confirmed Sunday the release of three citizens seized from a tugboat in the Sulu Sea in late June.
"Three of the five hostages had been released," she was quoted as saying by kompas.com.
The trio were among seven men kidnapped from the TB Charles -- carrying 13 Indonesians. Two of the hostages escaped last month.
According to Marsudi, the freed sailors will be transported from Sulu to Zamboanga City where they will be turned over to Indonesian authorities.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
It is one of two militant groups in the south to have pledged allegiance to Daesh, prompting fears during the stalling of a peace process between the government and the MNLF-breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel group that it could make inroads in a region torn by decades of armed conflict.
In 2013, Misuari’s MNLF faction laid siege to the majority-Christian city of Zamboanga to protest a peace process by the MILF, which Misuari claims leaves Muslims in the country’s south shortchanged in comparison to an earlier MNLF peace deal.