June 12, 2001, Seattle Times / AP, Two found beheaded on south Philippine island, by Jim Gomez,

June 12, 2001, Seattle Times / AP, Two found beheaded on south Philippine island, by Jim Gomez, 

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - Troops scouring a southern Philippine island for rebels holding about 28 hostages discovered two decapitated bodies yesterday. Officials said both were Filipinos, including a man who had volunteered to negotiate in the 3-week-old crisis.

The Abu Sayyaf guerrillas said earlier they had beheaded Guillermo Sobero, a vacationing Californian.

But National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said one of the bodies found on the western part of southern Basilan island was that of a negotiator who had contacted the Abu Sayyaf. The second body was unrelated to the hostage crisis, Golez said.

By today, troops searching the eastern area of the island, 560 miles south of Manila, where Abu Sayyaf guerrillas said they killed Sobero, had found no sign of his body.

Several hundred reinforcements, meanwhile, joined thousands of troops to hunt the Abu Sayyaf, who claim they are fighting to create a southern Islamic state. Some government troops and rebels clashed, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

"Tell Gloria to hurry up and solve this with her rescue operation, because you might not have any hostages left," guerrilla leader Abu Sabaya told the Radio Mindanao Network, referring to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Sobero, 40, who was born in Peru, was vacationing in the Philippines when he, two U.S. missionaries from Kansas and 17 other tourists were seized from an island resort across the Sulu Sea in late May.

The Abu Sayyaf had refused to free them until the government allowed the participation of a Malaysian negotiator who helped secure the release of other hostages last year.

The government agreed Monday, but Sabaya questioned the sincerity of the concession and said he beheaded Sobero anyway.

Philippine authorities held out hope Sabaya was bluffing, but seemed increasingly resigned he wasn't.

A military-intelligence task force put the likelihood Sobero was dead at "very, very high," Armed Forces Chief of Staff Diomedio Villanueva said.

Arroyo denounced the reported beheading and ordered an all-out war against the guerrillas.

"They did this dastardly act to prove that they are not kids making empty threats, underlining the ghoulishness and viciousness of the Abu Sayyaf," she said.

Sabaya had been threatening to execute an American at noon Monday, but pushed back the deadline when the government gave in to his demand that former Malaysian Sen. Sairin Karno be brought in to negotiate.

He later retracted the offer, telling the military to look for Sobero's head near the town of Tuburan.

"We ... can see that the government wants to outsmart us with these negotiators. What are we, stupid?" he said.

Arroyo has offered $2 million for the capture of Abu Sayyaf leaders but has refused ransoms.