Manila: Militants with links to the regional network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) beheaded three men on a remote southern island in the Philippines, the military and church officials said on Saturday.
The three men were gathering wood near Maluso town on Basilan island on Friday when they were abducted and later executed by Abu Sayyaf militants, Brigadier-General Eugene Clemen, commander of marines on the island, told reporters.
"We received reports this morning the three lumberjacks had been beheaded," Clemen said. Troops had been sent to search for the men's bodies, he said.
A simmering Muslim insurgency in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Southeast Asia country is one of the problems the new government of President-elect Benigno Aquino III will have to contend with when it takes office later this month.
The Philippines is also facing one of the world's longest-running communist insurgencies, which has killed 40,000 people and stunted economic growth in resource-rich areas outside the capital Manila.
Reports of the beheading came as outgoing President Gloria Arroyo sought to list her accomplishments in a speech before a military and civilian parade to mark the country's 112th independence day celebration.
"We have been a leader in the fight against global terrorism," Arroyo said.
Church leaders on Basilan, however, were disappointed over what they said was the government's failure to stop violence on the island, which is known for its rubber plantations.
"It's a bitter and painful independence day when three parishioners were abducted and later beheaded," Bishop Martin Jumoad told reporters. "There is no freedom here."
