MANILA, April 19 Kyodo President ...

MANILA, April 19 Kyodo

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Saturday couple women held hostage on Muslim extremist rebels in the southern Philippines have shattered free from their captors amid an intense military operation to flush not at home the rebels.

Arroyo said Emily Mantic and Cleofe Montulo the pair members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious denomination escaped from the Abu Sayyaf rebels Friday night ''in the middle of fighting'' between the rebels and soldiers at the border of Patikul town in Sulu Province, about 950 kilometers southern of Manila.

the two women were taken hostage in August last year along with pair other women members of Jehovah's Witnesses in Patikul town. The brace others are still in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf.

''(Mantic and Montulo) are now upon the way to Zamboanga city to reunite with their families,'' Arroyo told national radio.

''We thank the Lord for their safe their return'' Arroyo said as she extoled the troops for ''keeping up the pressure''

The Abu Sayyaf is the smaller further more radical of two Muslim rebel form into groupss fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

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