It was eight days ago that a prominent TV reporter and his film crew disappeared into a jungle on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines. They didn’t call their bosses or their families, and they missed their return flight to Manila. For a week, not a word.
Kidnapped — that was the first and easiest answer.
The team had been trying to interview a shadowy leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group, the violent Islamist outfit that is notorious for supporting itself through kidnappings for ransom. And Jolo is no resort: It sits amid a string of southern islands where criminal gangs and Islamist cells operate nearly unchecked.
But the interior secretary of the Philippines said Tuesday that the film crew is probably in no danger. He said one of them had finally called a friend to say they were with an Abu Sayyaf cell, but had not been kidnapped.
“They are not under duress,” said the secretary, Jesse Robredo, who was quoted by The Philippine Daily Inquirer. “They appear to be free to go anytime.”
The crew, working for Al Arabiya TV, is led by Baker Atyani, a well-known Jordanian journalist who had scored an interview with Osama bin Laden in June 2001. In the interview, Bin Laden offered a veiled and ominous warning about an upcoming attack against the United States.
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