Operation to free Red Cross worker turns bloody

Manila: A marine and dozens of militants were wounded as they clashed during a 'rescue' operation for an Italian Red Cross worker in the southern Philippines, a spokesman said.

Abu Sayyaf commander Albader Parad led the one-hour bloody clash with the marines in a jungle in the Indanan town Jolo said Navy spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo.

Italian hostage Eugenio Vagni was left behind in the safe house of the Abu Sayyaf Group, but the militants are keeping its location a secret, said Arevalo, adding the clash was one of Abu Sayyaf's ways to prevent the military from finding Vagni.

"We will soon know where he is," promised Arevalo, adding that this will happen as soon as the Marines succeeded in chasing the Abu Sayyaf out of their controlled residential area in Indanan.

After the clash, the Marines followed the bloodstains left behind by the Abu Sayyaf members.

"As we run after them, we are doubly careful because they might have Vagni with them," Arevalo said.

Jolo Governor Abdusakur Tan told Gulf News that the police and the military have been looking for Vagni "relentlessly," adding it is important for them to locate him because he needs medical attention.

Vagni has hypertension and is suffering from hernia, which prompted his captors to leave him behind in a residential area, said Tan.

Earlier, the ICRC said that Vagni was able to call his wife last Friday.

Swiss Andreas Notter and Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba of the International Committee of the Red Cross were kidnapped near Jolo jail on January 15.

On April 18, Notter was released. Lacaba was freed on April 2. Abu Sayyaf members ambushed and killed Jolo's provincial police chief Julasirim Kasim and his three escorts in Maimbung town.

Kasim led the rescue operation for Vagni before his death.

The Abu Sayyaf Group has been responsible for kidnap-for-ransom and other terror activities in the south since 2000.

It has been linked with the Al Qaida terror network of Osama Bin Laden.