seems like this early article let the cat out of the bag, since when do eight people ride all together in one car to sell Avon?
Abu Sayyaf seizes 6
Christian preachers
By Julie S. Alipala
Inquirer News Service
Jehovah Witnesses in Muslim area
THREE weeks after the close of the Philippine-US Balikatan military campaign against the Abu Sayyaf in the southern island of Basilan and after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo repeatedly declared that the bandit group had been crushed, the bandits abducted Christian preachers in nearby Sulu province Tuesday, military and police officials said.
Brigadier General Romeo Tolentino, commander of the 104th Army Brigade based in Sulu, Wednesday said Abu Sayyaf bandits abducted Tuesday morning six local preachers of Jehovah's Witnesses, a fundamentalist Christian sect.
Sulu police chief Ahiron Ajirim, Sulu said the latest Abu Sayyaf hostages were seized while selling Avon cosmetic products in the village of Kaunayan in Patikul town.
Tolentino said the preachers were selling Avon products "merely as a come-on to would-be converts."
But Ajirim said his men found no evidence the witnesses were promoting their religion in the predominantly Muslim area.
Patikul town's vice mayor Esmon Suhuri said the Army shelled suspected Abu Sayyaf hideouts around Patikul on Tuesday night. Other residents said they heard at least 10 ground-shaking artillery blasts.
The fighting was the first in the war-stricken area in months.
The military previously refrained from launching major attacks against the Abu Sayyaf while the bandits were holding hostages.
Armed Forces Southern Command chief Lieutenant General Ernesto Carolina said two battalions were deployed to rescue the hostages.
He said the bandits might use the six preachers as human shields amid an ongoing military operation to rescue three Indonesians being held by the Abu Sayyaf.
The three Indonesian seamen -- Muntu Jacobus Winowatan, Jul Kipli and Pieter Lerrich -- were kidnapped off Basilan in June by pirates who later turned their hostages over to the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu.
Tolentino identified the latest kidnap victims as Nori Bendijo, Cleofe Bantolo, Flora Bantolo, Lurimil Bantolo, Lionel Mantic and Emily Mantic. He said Bendijo had stayed in Jolo for 20 years, and the others were residents of nearby Zamboanga City.
Officials initially reported that eight people had been kidnapped, but two of them, identified only as Mr. and Mrs. Suliman, showed up at their homes Wednesday, saying they had spent the night with relatives and were surprised by the attention.
Police were investigating the case of the two.
The couple -- the only Muslims in the group -- served as guides when the Jehovah Witnesses entered Kaunayan village, police said.
Ajirim reported two men with pistols stopped the jeep carrying the five women and three men and forced them out their jeep.
Ajirim said his men found boxes of Avon cosmetics in the jeep.
He said the gunmen left behind the driver, who later identified one of the kidnappers as Muin Maulod Sahiron, a nephew of the one-armed Abu Sayyaf leader Radullan Sahiron.
Carolina said the young Sahiron had been involved in kidnapping in the past.
Tolentino said Muin Sahiron's group was behind the abduction of Manila television reporter Maan Macapagal and her cameraman Val Cuenca two years ago in Sulu.
Vice Mayor Suhuri said the rural folk were in the middle of a major harvest, and renewed fighting could disrupt the relative prosperity the area enjoyed this year.
The Abu Sayyaf has often kidnapped for ransom but more frequently has abducted poor Filipinos to serve for weeks or months as slave labor.
The Abu Sayyaf kidnapping abated somewhat in February when the Philippines and the US jointly launched the Balikatan counter-terrorism exercises in Mindanao, particularly Basilan.
For six months, about 1,200 US troops trained and provided logistical and intelligence support for the Philippine military's push to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf.
The joint exercises ended officially three weeks ago, although a few Americans remained in Basilan to finish infrastructure projects.
US Navy Admiral Thomas Fargo, chief of the US Pacific Command, said in a speech at the closing ceremonies on July 31 that the military campaign left the Abu Sayyaf "in disarray and on the run, unable to find the money or the time to eat, rest and resupply."
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone also said the joint campaign crushed the Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The bandits in Sulu, about 80 kilometers southwest of Basilan, are from a different Abu Sayyaf faction and suffered less from the intense offensives that the military says decimated the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan.
