Rebels will kill hostage 'if Saddam asks us to'
A Philippines Muslim rebel leader has offered to kill an ailing US hostage if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein asks him to.
Abu Sabaya, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippines, said on Tuesday the group tortured Jeffrey Schilling to retaliate for US and British strikes on radar facilities in Iraq.
Mr Sabaya has frequently threatened to kill Mr Schilling, an Oakland resident, unless his group receives a ransom of $10 million.
"A signal from brother Hussein could end Schilling's life," said Sabaya, who issues statements through local radio stations. "It is a victory for Islam."
Mr Sabaya has also said Mr Schilling is very ill, losing weight and coughing blood.
Military spokesman Colonel Fredesvindo Covarrubias said the statement shows "Sabaya is out of his mind. Whatever happens to the kidnapped victim, the Abu Sayyaf will be answerable to the world. Blood will be on their hands."
Some local military officials, however, doubt that Mr Schilling is a hostage and say he may sympathise with the Abu Sayyaf, who are fighting to carve a separate homeland out of the southern region of Mindanao.
Mr Schilling, a Muslim convert, was taken by the rebels after he visited their camp in Jolo on August 31. Schilling was accompanied by girlfriend Ivy Osani, Sabaya's cousin. Ms Osani was released after the rebels seized Mr Schilling.
The Abu Sayyaf is the smaller but more extremist of two Muslim separatist groups in the south.
The group rose to international prominence last April when members abducted 21 Western holidaymakers and Asian workers from a dive resort in Malaysia and took them back to their camp on the Philippine island of Jolo.
