He said in a speech late Saturday that he had given the same orders to Filipino forces. On Saturday, ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf gunmen freed a South Korean captain and his Filipino crewman who were abducted three months ago from their cargo ship. At least 27 hostages, many of them foreign crewmen, remain in the hands of different Abu Sayyaf factions, he said. Without a known foreign source of funds, the Abu Sayyaf has survived mostly on ransom kidnappings, extortion and other acts of banditry. The militants have mostly targeted slow-moving tugboats in the busy sea bordering the southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Source: Washington Post January 15, 2017 02:22 UTC