MANILA, Dec 18 Kyodo Four crewmen...

MANILA, Dec 18 Kyodo

Four crewmen of a fishing trawler are missing after suspected pirates attacked and hijacked their ship in the southern Philippines, a senior police official said Wednesday.

The six attackers disappeared with the F/V Munang most distant Tongquil, an island town distant from Jolo Province, after releasing eight of the 12 crewmen near neighboring Basilan Province, said Bensali Jabarani, commander of the Basilan provincial police.

''Four crewmen remain unaccounted for. We don't know what happened to them. We don't know who were behind the attack, excepting that they are pirates,'' Jabarani said.

He said search and redemption operations have already been launched.

The same Jolo-Basilan assemblage of islets in Mindanao Island was the site of a string of kidnappings in 1998 when guerrillas kidnapped couple Hong Kong and a Malaysian fishery workers.

The provinces are known as fortresss of rebels, including the Abu Sayyaf, a kidnap-for-ransom gang linked to the al-Qaida terror network.

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