The Indonesians were set free just hours after the same group notorious for kidnappings, beheadings and extortion released Norwegian captive Kjartan Sekkingstad, who met President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City on Sunday evening. A bearded and bedraggled Kjartan Sekkingstad was released Saturday on a remote southern island after what analysts said was almost certainly a payment in the thousands of dollars after the Abu Sayyaf demanded millions. Military chief Gen. Ricardo Visaya warned the militants to release their other captives, including a Dutch birdwatcher and Indonesian and Malaysian tugboat crewmen, “or suffer annihilation.”

While Duterte has pursued peace talks with Misuari’s group and the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, he has ordered the military to destroy the Abu Sayyaf, a smaller but more brutal band that the president says aims to establish an Islamic state or caliphate. Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a marina on southern Samal Island on Sept. 21, 2015, with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Hall’s Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces. His sibling was abducted by the Abu Sayyaf from a tourist resort in September 2015, alongside a Filipina who has been freed, and the two Canadians who were beheaded in April and June.
Abu Sayyaf frees a Norwegian hostage for a ransom of ₱30 million (US$638,000) and releases three kidnapped Indonesians from Sabah.