MORE BLOOD ON THE HANDS OF THE TERRORISTS :

U.S. Hostage Dies in Philippines Rescue Attempt : One Filipino Hostage Also Killed When U.S-Trained Soldiers Strike (Jim Gomez, June 7, 2002, The Associated Press)

U.S.-trained troops raided a Philippine hideout Friday to end a year-long hostage crisis, freeing one American but triggering a gunfight that killed her husband.

A third captive was also reported shot, but soldiers on the scene said they had not found her body.

Martin Burnham, a missionary from Wichita, Kan., was killed by a gunshot during the raid near the town of Siraway, said Gen. Narciso Abaya, the Philippine deputy military chief of staff.

Gracia Burnham was being operated on in a military hospital in the southern city of Zamboanga, said Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, commander of Philippine forces in the south.

"She's here already," Carolina told reporters. "She is being operated on. It's a gunshot wound. She's talking. She's out of danger."

Abaya said Ediborah Yap, a Filipino nurse kidnapped shortly after the Burnhams, was shot in the rescue operation and died of her wounds. However, troops at the site said they had not found her body.

Four of the kidnappers were killed and several soldiers wounded, Abaya said.

Philippine officers said U.S. helicopters, part of a 1,000-strong contingent of U.S. troops advising Filipinos fighting the Abu Sayyaf, were retrieving more wounded from the clash scene.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said no U.S. troops were directly involved in the raid and that the American counterterrorism training program in the Philippines would continue.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Burnham family--would that they could have been rescued with no loss of life.

Still, this is good news from the larger perspective. Nine months ago we were all stunned to see that radical Islamic terrorism had a global reach--today we see that Western anti-terrorism has the same reach and a more powerful fist with which to strike.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 7, 2002 9:53 AM