| Armed kidnappers abducted a seven year-old schoolgirl and killed her driver Thursday when they struck a Roman Catholic school in the southern Philippines, police said. The girl was snatched as the family driver dropped her off at the gate of the Notre Dame de Jolo school in predominantly Muslim Jolo island, said Jolo town police chief Muhibuddin Ismael. The unknown gunmen shot and killed the driver and took the girl away in a van, Chief Inspector Ismael told reporters. He said police expect the kidnappers to contact her family, which runs a local business in the provincial capital Jolo, to demand ransom. Jolo is a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, who held hostage two groups of foreign tourists in 2000 and 2001. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been mounting a campaign against kidnapping gangs ahead of the May 10 presidential election and said earlier this week that 71 gang members had now been arrested or killed since she ordered a crackdown in October. |