Villagers saw the American missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, being dragged by their captors led by Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya in Maluso, Basilan last Sunday, a local newspaper said.

"Both (Americans) were thin and the man had grown a beard. I don't know them but I'm sure they were foreigners," the Philippine Star quoted a resident as saying.

Nineteen other Filipino hostages were not seen with the hostage-takers, said the same report. The two Americans were part of the 20 who were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf bandits in Palawan, southwestern Philippines on May 27.

The hostage takers and their victims fled towards the coastal town of Sumisip, where they took a passenger jeepney for Upper Mahalalang town, said the report, hinting that the Abu Sayyaf had managed to escape a military dragnet.

But the group aborted its escape and returned to Sumisip after the police and civilian volunteers spotted them, the paper quoted intelligence sources as saying.

Abu Sayyaf leader Suhod Tanadjalin and 30 other armed men crossed the Kumalarang River in a diversionary manoeuvre to allow Sabaya and his men to escape the military dragnet, the report said.

At the same time, seven of Sabaya's men, armed with 57RR recoilless rockets, took two motorboats for Maluso town and docked at Barangay Samal to get food and petrol, the report added.

Sabaya was said to have been visiting his relatives in Lamitan and Malamawi towns near Isabela City. Sabaya, whose real name is Aldan Tilao, has a $100,000 (P5 million) prize on his head.

Our Correspondent Raffy Jimenez adds: The Army will start deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) next month to track down the Abu Sayyaf men and their hostages in the jungles of Basilan and Sulu.

The computer-controlled miniature planes have been undergoing test flights in Fort Magsaysay, the country's largest military base, in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija, central Philippines for the past six months, said Col. Ricardo Morales, chief of the Army's plans and programmes.