Injured	Killed
0	3

Date: 10 June 2010
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100612-275317/Abus-beheaded-3-lumberjacks-says-bishop

ZAMBOANGA CITY—THE ABU Sayyaf beheaded three men they abducted on Thursday in Basilan, Bishop Martin Jumoad revealed on Saturday. 

“It’s a bitter and painful Independence Day for Basileños when three parishioners were abducted and later beheaded,” Jumoad said. 

An emotion-filled Jumoad blamed government forces for the incident. 

“What kind of people do we have in the military? Why did they allow this thing to happen? There is no freedom here, our people’s freedom is curtailed, our people are getting beheaded,” the prelate said. 

Jumoad said he received a report of the beheading from Maluso parish priest Fr. Nick Eucapor. 

He said Eucapor told him that Elpejo Amemenzi, Manuel Lumasag and Dado Lumatang were abducted at 3 p.m. on Thursday in Sumisip town. 

“Unfortunately, this morning (Saturday) they received reports and intercepted radio communications from the Marines that the three parishioners had been beheaded,” Jumoad said. 

Basilan police chief Sr. Supt. Antonio Mendoza confirmed that he received a report on the abduction in the hinterlands of Sumisip. 

The three men were lumberjacks, he said. 

“The victims were abducted while they were towing lumber,” Mendoza said. 

He said the Abu Sayyaf faction led by Purudji Indama was behind the abduction.

But Mendoza said he had not received news of a beheading.

“We don’t have confirmation of any beheading. We are following it up,” he said. 

On June 3, Indama’s group executed three persons they abducted in Sumisip during a military operation. 

The Abu Sayyaf, a band of self-styled Islamist extremists, has been menacing the southern Philippines since the 1980s.

It shot to notoriety with its high-profile abduction of locals and foreigners. 

A government crackdown on the group resulted in the deaths of most of its senior officers, including founder Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and his siblings who later replaced him.

The group survived, however, with the emergence of new leaders such as Indama of Basilan. 

The group, which was once dismissed by the government as a spent force, had allied itself with the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah—the Southeast Asian arm of the al-Qaida international terror network led by Osama bin Laden.

It learned bomb-making techniques from the JI and launched attacks in Mindanao and Metro Manila.