ZAMBOANGA - ISLAMIC militants in the southern Philippines released a kidnapped nurse they had been holding for four months after payment of a hefty ransom, authorities said on Saturday.

Ms Preciosa Feliciano, 24, was turned over to a local official in the nearby island of Basilan late on Friday and brought by the military to this southern Philippine city on Saturday.

She was kidnapped on July 7 by suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group linked by intelligence agencies to the Al-Qaeda terror network.

Ms Feliciano said she had largely been kept alone in a house and had just been abruptly informed that she was being freed.

She said that she and her parents 'were crying a lot' when they were finally reunited in Basilan.

The nurse's father, Mr Fernando Feliciano said that his family initially paid 1.5 million pesos (S$460,000) along with an M16 rifle and a motorcycle for the release of his daughter but the kidnappers had demanded an additional 400,000 pesos.

Two aid workers are still being held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf group but Ms Feliciano said she did not see them during her captivity.

The Abu Sayyaf is a small group of militants who are on the US government's list of foreign terrorist organisations. The group is responsible for the country's worst terrorist attack, in which the 2004 firebombing of a passenger ferry in Manila Bay killed more than 100 people, and for a string of high profile abductions targeting foreigners and Christians.

Victims of the abductions have assailed the government for the failure to recover their relatives or stop the kidnappings.

'There is a growing frustration and disappointment among the relatives and friends of the victims over the way authorities are dealing with the cases.

There's no public attention given since these victims are not well-known people,' a statement issued by relatives of the kidnap victims said. -- AFP

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