Hope lingers for U.S. hostage

By CNN's John Raedler

MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- For the second straight day the Philippine military has cast cautious doubt over a guerrilla group's claim that it had executed an American hostage.

Briefing reporters in Manila Thursday, the military's official spokesman said he hoped the hostage, Guillermo Sobero, was still alive.

"Sobero's body has not been found," said Brig.-Gen. Edilberto Adan.

On Tuesday, Abu Sabaya, a leader of the guerrillas holding Sobero and other hostages on Basilan island in the southern Philippines claimed to have beheaded the American.

"There is no physical evidence to that effect," Adan said Thursday.

"While it is claimed by one man, Abu Sabaya, that he's dead, as we said, until physical evidence has been found - or credible witnesses come out - then we cannot just believe the statement of Abu Sabaya.

"We hope Mr. Sobero is still alive," Adan added.

The military spokesman also confirmed that three bodies had been found on Basilan in the previous 48 hours.

But he said two of the corpses were in advanced stages of decomposition and their deaths were not believed related to recent activities of the guerrillas, known as the Abu Sayyaf.

Adan said the third body, which was freshly killed, was "definitely not" that of Sobero.

A man purporting to be Abu Sabaya phoned a radio station in the southern Philippines Thursday and spoke on air.

He did not mention Sobero but he claimed to have taken a new hostage, a Muslim cleric.

Adan doubted the veracity of the call and the claim.

There was no fighting reported Thursday on Basilan where the Philippine military says it has 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers trying to hunt down the guerrillas.

The Abu Sayyaf kidnapped Sobero, two other Americans and 17 Filipinos from a resort in the southwestern Philippines on May 27.

The guerrillas, Muslim extremists, say they want to establish a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

But they are widely viewed here as bandits who are more interested in kidnapping people and extorting ransom than they are in setting up a separate state.