Peace activist taken hostage

A Sri Lankan peace activist became the latest victim of a wave of kidnappings in the southern Philippines blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants, officials said today.

Omar Jalil, 36, from the non-partisan group Nonviolent Peaceforce, which has been monitoring a decades-old Muslim separatist uprising in the Philippines, was taken by nine gunmen from his residence in coastal Lamitan town on Basilan island early today.