April 28, 2000, Sydney Morning Herald, Guerillas braced for assault, by Jason Gutierrez,

April 28, 2000, Sydney Morning Herald, Guerillas braced for assault, by Jason Gutierrez, in Samak, Philippines

Muslim kidnappers have posted hundreds of snipers around a former hill farm where 21 people, including 10 foreigners, were being held, to ambush any government rescue mission, local police said in the southern Philippines.

A no-man's land amid untended coconut groves separates the hostages from government troops waiting to free them, the Talipao municipal police chief, Mr Rudy Yusuf, said.

Yesterday, that land was blanketed by heavy rain and low-lying cloud.

Mr Yusuf said the snipers were posted along the three-kilometre stretch where tropical regrowth has reclaimed a former hill farm where the hostage are being held. The 21 - 10 Malaysians, three Germans, two French, two South Africans, two Finns, one Lebanese and a Filipina - were snatched from the resort island of Sipadan in neighbouring Malaysia last Sunday.

The kidnappers from the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist guerrilla group drove a jeep up towards the foothills of Mount Bayog near Samak village on Jolo island three days ago, witnesses said.

"They drove past here at 4 pm last Wednesday. We were unable to stop them as they were heavily armed," said one of a small number of government militia manning the last government checkpoint at Samak. Residents said several trucks filled with new Abu Sayyaf recruits later drove up the rutted asphalt road.

In the foothills lie the camp of the local Abu Sayyaf commander, Mujib Susukan. The military say the Abu Sayyaf has about a thousand members and is using terrorist methods to advance its campaign to set up a pure Islamic state in the southern third of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines.

The group augments its resources by engaging in kidnapping and extortion as well as providing sanctuary to foreign terrorists in return for training and funding, according to a military briefing paper.

In a second drama being played out on the southern Philippines island of Basilan, troops were advancing under heavy fire on a Abu Sayyaf mountain hideout where 27 Filipino hostages were being held.

"It appears that the soldiers have reached the top of the mountain and the Abu Sayyaf have taken their hostages inside caves," the Defence Secretary, Mr Orlando Mercado, said.

"It is now bunker-to-bunker fighting," he quoted the military commander in charge of the operation as saying.

The hostages - mostly schoolchildren - have been held for more than a month.

Philippine officials said government forces had killed more than 30 Abu Sayyaf guerillas since launching a rescue operation last weekend in Basilan. The military said it had lost five dead and 25 wounded.

The Basilan guerillas have demanded the release of three Islamic militants held in the United States, including one believed to have masterminded the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Centre. Manila and Washington have rejected the demand.

The guerillas said last week they had beheaded two adult male captives, and have threatened to kill more if the military continues to attack.

Agencies