By Ankit Panda
The Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines has threatened to kill two German hostages.
On Wednesday, the southern Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf Islamist militant group threatened to kill two German hostages unless Germany ceased all support for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. The group’s threat speaks to the increasingly global appeal of the Islamic State. Abu Sayyaf has known links to Al Qaeda, which itself denounces IS. The Philippines-based militants are additionally demanding 250 million pesos ($5.6 million) for the hostages. The group has a set a deadline of October 10 for their demands to be met.
The report that the militants were threatening to kill the German hostages was released by the SITE Intelligence Group, a monitoring service that tracks terrorist communications. “A message attributed to the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf group threatened that two German hostages will be killed unless it is paid a ransom and Germany stops its support to the United States against Islamic State (IS),” SITE claimed. According to Reuters, the Philippines authorities are attempting to verify the demands. Meanwhile, Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin vowed to contain the militants: ”What the Abu Sayyaf (group) is doing is propaganda to force the government to give in to their demands. We will not be intimidated by their gestures and actions. We will continue to contain them.” The German government and the German embassy in Manila remain silent on the matter at the time of this writing.
Read the full story at The Diplomat