A government official in the Philippines says kidnappers holding three Red Cross workers have threatened to behead one of their captives Tuesday by 2 p.m. local time (0600 UTC) unless police and troops withdraw from Jolo island.
Authorities say the militant group Abu Sayyaf contacted the government late Sunday to demand a complete evacuation of government forces from Jolo, in the southern Philippines, by Monday night. The island nation’s interior secretary, Ronaldo Puno, says it is physically impossible to comply with the new demand.

MANILA, Philippines—The Filipino engineer held captive by Abu Sayyaf bandits in the mountains of Indanan, Sulu, along with her two colleagues in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has pleaded for help to end their suffering.
Mary Jean Lacaba was allowed by her captors to speak on the phone with this reporter on the afternoon of Feb. 25. Her voice was low and trembling, and she spoke in short sentences, in a mix of Filipino and English.
Lacaba relayed the same message over and over again, directed at the government …

Zamboanga City/Manila: Nine armed men abducted a 36-year old Sri Lankan peace worker in war-torn southern Basilan Island in a pre-dawn attack on Friday, officials said.
Omar Jalil was roused from his sleep by nine gunmen, who forcibly entered his home in Maloong village in Lamitan City at 2:25am, said Basilan police director Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar.
Jalil is with Nonviolent Peaceforce, a nonpartisan group that has been sending observers to the four-decade-old separatist struggle in the southern Philippines.

INDANAN, Sulu: The Abu Sayyaf is not demanding a ransom for the release of three volunteers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) whom the group abducted on January 15.
Abu Ali, a senior leader within the Abu Sayyaf, told The Manila Times that what they want is an independent Bangsamoro homeland.

The 12 remaining peacekeepers in the troubled Philippines province of Mindanao are to leave the area, despite government appeals for them to stay.
The Malaysian peacekeepers are to leave on Sunday after the Philippines government pulled out of the latest peace talks with the indigenous Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf).
The two sides have failed to agree on the mandate of the peacekeepers.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Pirates hijacked a Philippines chemical tanker with 23 crew near Somalia, bringing the total number of attacks in waters off the impoverished African nation this year to 83, a maritime official said Tuesday.
The tanker was heading to Asia when it was seized Monday in the Gulf of Aden by pirates armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

MANILA, (Reuters) – The Philippines is open to calls to halt an army offensive against rogue Muslim rebels, the most senior military commander in the south said on Thursday, adding that the conflict was taking a large toll in lives and money.
“We are open to a ceasefire because we realise that we can’t end this problem by annihilating each other,” Lieutenant-General Cardozo Luna, the military’s vice chief of staff and commander of all military forces on southern Mindanao island, told reporters.

MANILA (AFP) — Fighting with Muslim rebels on the Philippine island of Mindanao is unlikely to escalate into full-scale war but foreign Islamic militants could stage attacks in retaliation, the International Crisis Group said Thursday.
While returning to the peace table remains an option for the government and the 12,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which has been waging a decades-long rebellion, any final agreement remains a long way off, the ICG said in a policy briefing paper.