Rebels Free Hostage, Say Others to Follow

Muslim rebels freed a Philippine woman held hostage for nearly four months on one of the nation’s remote islands--a sign, officials said, “that everything should proceed smoothly” for the release of at least a dozen Western captives. Lucrecia Dablo, an employee at Malaysia’s Sipadan diving resort and one of 21 mostly foreign hostages abducted by Abu Sayyaf rebels from the resort April 23, was not told ahead of time of her release. Frightened when suddenly taken by armed men from a hide-out on Jolo island in the southern Philippines, she said later: “I did not expect to be the first one to go.”