Group terrorists Abu Sayyaf they planned to kidnap to the Philippine boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and other members of his family to finance the so-called Islamic State (IS) revealed today the President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III.
In a statement condemning the recent execution of Canadian tourist John Ridsdel, Aquino indicated that Abu Sayyaf he has committed and plans a series of atrocities to gain acceptance by ISIS, an organization to which the Philippine Islamist group has sworn allegiance.
The president highlighted in an attempt to win votes against the IS jihadists, Abu Sayyaf he had planned to kidnap the iconic Filipino boxing member of the Philippine Congress and his son, some members of his family, and even attempt on his own life.
“The Muslim militants also wanted to explode bombs in the metropolitan area of Manila to try to get funding from the Islamic State group, but the plans were discovered,” Aquino said, according to the online newspaper The Phil Star.
The president, whose term ends next June, indicated that the group Abu Sayyaf (ASG) and various small terrorist groups now want to align themselves with Daesh (the Arabic acronym for Islamic State) to gain access to its financial resources.
He added that along with a group of Muslim converts, calling themselves the Rajah Sulaiman Movement, Abu Sayyaf He planned in addition to kidnapping officials, foreigners and great Philippine personalities, such as Pacquiao, her son, and her own sister Kris Aquino, who is a renowned actress in the Philippines.
Aquino said that the militants of Abu Sayyaf they have posed as Islamic freedom fighters, but “behaved like criminals focused on enriching themselves by taking hostages for ransom.”
The Philippine head of state promised to intensify the fight against the Islamist group, which has struggled since the 1990s to establish an independent state in the southern Philippines, and to bring justice to the death of Canadian John Ridsdel, who was beheaded last Monday in the southern Philippines. Sulu province.
The 68-year-old Canadian tourist and former journalist was beheaded after Abu Sayyaf He did not receive the payment of a large ransom that he had demanded within the deadline he had given the authorities, on Monday, April 25.
The victim’s head was found Monday night in a plastic bag in a town hall in Jolo, Sulu, about 1,000 kilometers south of Manila, one of the extremist group’s main fiefdoms.
A headless body of a white man was found this morning by villagers in an area of the mountain in Sulu, although forensic experts are still working to determine if it is of the former Canadian executive, who was abducted last September.
Since its inception in 1991, Abu Sayyaf has carried out bombings, kidnappings, executions and extortion as part of its fight to establish an independent Sharia (Islamic Law) state in the southern Philippines.
It is estimated that currently Abu Sayyaf (Father of the Swordmaker) has 700 militants on the islands of Joló, Basilán and Mindanao and is holding several hostages, including another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filipina, who were kidnapped along with Ridsdel.
Terrorist planned kidnapping of Manny Pacquiao
