ZAMBOANGA City, Philippines—An Australian man was abducted in Ipil town, Zamboanga Sibugay, on Monday, the military said, in what could be the latest in a long line of kidnappings for ransom by Muslim militants.
Several armed men abducted Warren Rodwell from his home in Green Meadow Subdivision in the village of Lower Pangi in the seaside town of Ipil on Mindanao island, then fled on speed boats, according to regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang.
Cabangbang told AFP no one had claimed responsibility for the abduction.
Chief Superintendent Elpidio de Asis, police chief for Western Mindanao, said around 6 armed men entered Rodwell’s house, “took the victim by force, tied his hands and quickly withdrew towards forested areas of Upper Pangi.”
Rodwell, 53, is married to a 27-year old Filipina and has been a resident of Ipil for almost a year now.
Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, chief of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations Western Mindanao, said the victim “may have sustained an injury as there were blood stains found” where he was taken.
Kidnappings for ransom, often targeting foreigners, occur frequently in parts of the southern Philippines, where a Muslim separatist rebellion has endured for more than 40 years.
The Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf is the most infamous of many Muslim militant groups known to carry out such kidnappings in the south.
The Abu Sayyaf, which is believed to have only a few hundred armed followers, was blamed for the abduction of a Filipino woman also in Ipil town in September.
The military rescued her two weeks later on the Abu Sayyaf’s stronghold of Basilan island, about three to five hours away by speed boat, during a gunfight in which one soldier died.
Cabangbang said the military was not yet able to determine if the Abu Sayyaf was also behind Monday’s kidnapping.
“We are looking into the possibility that it may be the same group, but it’s too early to say,” he said.
The Abu Sayyaf was founded in 1990 with Al-Qaeda funding and has been blamed for the Philippines’ worst terrorist attacks, including a ferry bombing that killed more than 100 people in 2004, as well as the beheadings of foreigners.
A rotating force of about 600 US soldiers has been stationed in the southern Philippines for a decade to train the Philippine military how to fight the Abu Sayyaf, although the group has survived partly due to strong local support.
However, other armed groups, including criminal gangs and rogue elements of the main Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, are also known to be involved in the kidnapping-for-ransom industry.
This year alone two Americans, a Malaysian, an Indian and three South Koreans, along with many Filipinos, have been kidnapped in various parts of the southern Philippines.
Some of the kidnapped victims have been released but others, including an American teenager, remain in captivity.
Cabangbang said few other details about Rodwell were immediately available, and a media officer at the Australian embassy was unable to provide any information.
A website, which could not be immediately verified, advertised a shop run by Warren Rodwell and his Filipino wife in Ipil. It linked to other sites posting photos and writings from Rodwell traveling around the world.