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Home/ stevenwarran's Library/ Notes/ August 28, 2002, AP Worldstream, Soldiers kill suspected Abu Sayyaf extremist in clash in southern Philippines,

August 28, 2002, AP Worldstream, Soldiers kill suspected Abu Sayyaf extremist in clash in southern Philippines,

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August 28, 2002, AP Worldstream, Soldiers kill suspected Abu Sayyaf extremist in clash in southern Philippines,

Dateline: MANILA, Soldiers killed one man in a clash with suspected Muslim extremists on the southern island of Jolo where four Jehovah's Witnesses are being held hostage, officials said Wednesday.

Soldiers also recovered a rifle and a radio in the five-minute clash with suspected members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group in the jungles of Talipao town on the island Tuesday. No one was reported hurt on the government side.

Military officials said the clash occurred while soldiers were searching for a band of kidnappers who abducted six Jehovah's Witnesses on Jolo last Tuesday and later beheaded two.

The government originally said the kidnappers were from the Abu Sayyaf but later backtracked and now says they are simple drug addicts out for quick cash.

Weeks before the kidnapping, the government announced it had decimated the Abu Sayyaf. The latest kidnapping, if carried out by the group, would challenge that assertion.

On Tuesday, a top general said the military was planning a rescue operation to free the four Jehovah's Witnesses after talks with their kidnappers failed.

The operation had not started as of Wednesday morning.

The kidnappers seized two male and four female Jehovah's Witnesses as they sold Avon cosmetics and herbal teas on Jolo last week.

They decapitated the two men and left their severed heads in a public market in Jolo town with a note justifying the killing of Christians by "pious Muslims." The tongue of one victim had been cut off, a doctor said.

Aside from the Jehovah's Witnesses, three Indonesian tugboat crewmen kidnapped at sea June 17 are being held by another armed group in Jolo's Luuk town.

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