“After the militant group Abu Sayyaf kidnapped a group of foreign citizens and killed six soldiers in the southern Philippines in late 2014, President Benigno S. Aquino III vowed to wipe the terrorists out. ‘We have several battalions,’ he said, not only line infantry but ‘some of our most elite forces.’ Those troops had been ordered into ‘all of these mountain lairs and very heavily wooded jungle and dense areas to precisely deprive them of safe havens.’ Instead, Abu Sayyaf has kidnapped several more foreign citizens in the nearly year and a half since, bringing the total to at least 19, and its heightened campaign of high-profile abductions has attracted growing international attention.”
Source: Abu Sayyaf Militants Thriving as Hostage-Takers in Philippines – The New York Times