al Qa’ida network of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, and that they are targeting not only Americans but also other Westerns, including Europeans.
Martin Burnham, who has been held hostage with his wife Gracia made the statement in a video that was distributed Thursday March 7 by the Reuters news agency.
Observers who saw the video said the missionary couple appears to be in relative good health, although they expressed some concern about the apparent weight loss of Martin Burnham. It was unclear when the video was recorded. Reuters said the unidentified informants who handed over the tape claimed the couple was filmed in mid-January, but other people suggested it may well have been made earlier than November.
In a statement that appeared to have been written by the Abu Sayyaf group, Martin Burnham said that their nearly 10 months of captivity was a result of America’s foreign policy towards the middle east and the mistreatment of Muslims.
"I, Martin Burnham and my wife Gracia, both U.S. citizens were taken captive on May 27, 2001 at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan by the al Qa’ida’s ‘Al Harakatul Islamiah’ or known as the Abu Sayyaf group," he said in the statement he read.
Reuters noted that Gracia, who was sitting next to him but did not speak, was not having the Muslim scarf other female hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf are reportedly often forced to wear. However earlier this year the missionaries of New Tribes Mission, who are believed to have come under pressure to give up their Christian faith, cried out for help in an interview aired on America’s television program 48 Hours.
In that interview Gracia Burnham said she and her husband "have scores in their mouths and on their legs" from poor nutrition and that she wakes up with chest pain. Although several rebels have been captured, thousands of Philippine troops supported by Americans are still hunting down most Abu Sayyaf members, as part of the war against terrorism and in an effort to release the hostages.
The Burnhams were abducted by the Abu Sayyaf group from an island resort in central Philippines in May last year and taken to the guerrilla stronghold on southern Basilan.
A senior member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) told BosNewsLife Noel Tarrazona earlier that he feared that a fire fight between American soldiers and Abu Sayyaf is inevitable. "You cannot avoid that," said Ustadz Sharrif Julabbi of MILF, as they fight for a separate Islamic state.
