61.   Police said they had arrested three of four people believed to have made up the kidnap gang.

62.   Police shot dead eight suspected members of a kidnap gang in a clash south of the Philippine capital, a police official said Thursday.

63.   President Gloria Arroyo has ordered a crackdown on kidnap gangs, which have plagued her presidency and scared off potential tourists and foreign investors.

64.   Security forces raided the hideout of a kidnap gang in the southern Philippines early Monday, killing three suspects and seizing explosives and guns, a military spokesman said.

65.   The Abu Sayyaf is a small kidnap gang who style themselves as Islamic freedom fighters.

66.   The Abu Sayyaf is a kidnap gang linked to the al-Qaeda network of prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden.

67.   The armed men are suspected to be members of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim kidnap gang which is notorious for its abductions of foreigners and Christians in the southern Philippines.

68.   The government says kidnap gangs are run by rogue units of Moslem guerrillas.

69.   The military has also accused the MILF of coddling in its camps Muslim kidnap gangs on the run from security forces, including the Abu Sayyaf group.