Catholic priest wounded in Basilan ambush

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – A Catholic priest was wounded in an ambushed Saturday while on his way to say Mass in a remote town in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, police said. Police said Claretian priest Felimon Libot was wounded in the attack and so were two of his security escorts, both government militias in the village of Upper Cabengbeng in Sumisip town. "The priest and two of his escorts [were] wounded in the ambush," Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar, the island's police chief, told the GMANews.TV. He said the priest was on a jeep and on his way to the village of Tumahubong in Sumisip town when gunmen ambushed them around 12.30 p.m. "There is an ongoing pursuit operation in the area," he said. But Major Eugene Batara, a regional military spokesman, said four militiamen escorting the priest were wounded in the ambush. One Philippine Marine was also hurt in the attack, he said. "Four government militias are wounded," Batara said in a separate interview. No group claimed responsibility for the ambush, but police said the area is a known lair of Abu Sayyaf militants and the larger rebel group called Moro Islamic Liberation Front, both had been implicated in previous attacks in the predominantly Muslim province, just several nautical miles south of Zamboanga City. The Abu Sayyaf is still holding two aid workers, Esperancita Hupida and Millet Mendoza, kidnapped last month on the island, about 900 km south of Manila. In March 2000, Abu Sayyaf militants kidnapped 58 people, mostly teachers and students, including a Catholic priest Roel Gallardo in Sumisip town. The priest was tortured and killed along with four other teachers. The Abu Sayyaf, which means "Bearer of the Sword," was originally fighting for a separate Islamic state similar to Afghanistan, but resorted to banditry and kidnapping after its Libyan firebrand founder, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, was killed in 1998 in a clash with policemen in Basilan province. The Abu Sayyaf also killed two Catholic priests in the past years - Rey Roda of the congregation of Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who was shot inside his parish in Tawi-Tawi early in January this year and Bishop Benjamin de Jesus, assassinated in Sulu province in 1997. - Al Jacinto