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Philippine troops scour island for Red Cross captives
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MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine troops have fanned out on a southern island to search for gunmen who abducted three members of the International Committee on the Red Cross (ICRC), including an Italian and a Swiss national, officials said on Friday.
There has been no word from the kidnappers, believed to be from the notorious Abu Sayyaf group of Islamic radicals, they said.
"We're not really sure whether the Abu Sayyaf was behind the kidnapping because no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the abduction," Marine Lieutenant-General Nelson Allaga, military commander in the Western Mindanao area, told reporters.
Police said the kidnap on Jolo island on Thursday was led by Albader Parad, a top leader of the Abu Sayyaf. The theory was bolstered by information the gunmen were moving toward an area in the interior of Jolo where Parad was known to be operating.
The ICRC has identified the three kidnap victims as Andreas Notter, a 38-year-old Swiss national; Eugenio Vagni, a 62-year-old Italian and Mary Jean Lacaba, a 37-year-old from the Philippines.
"Our operations are on full blast," National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales told reporters, adding security forces were instructed to give the safety of the Swiss, Italian and Filipina captives "utmost priority."
The Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked in the past to al Qaeda and is believed to be sheltering Indonesians wanted for the 2002 Bali bombings, is notorious for demanding large ransoms. But the ICRC said they had not been contacted.
"We have not heard anything from anybody," spokesman Roland Bigler told a radio station. "We don't know what group was behind the kidnapping."
The ICRC said the abduction took place just a few hundred yards (meters) from a prison that the team had visited for a water and sanitation project.
The Abu Sayyaf is said to have about 350 members based on Jolo and the nearby island of Basilan. It has supporters among the Muslim-dominated local residents but has been largely dormant since its top leaders were killed in a series of encounters with troops in late 2006 and early 2007.
(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
