LEAD: 4 including 2 Westerners abducted but freed later in S. Philippines

MANILA, May 31 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH FRESH INFO)

Four people, including two Westerners, were abducted by armed men but were released hours later in the southern Philippines on Thursday, a military commander said.

The kidnappers released the four victims -- two Filipinos, a German national and a U.S. national -- to the secessionist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front in a remote village in North Cotabato Province on Mindanao Island, said Army commander Col. Pedro Soria.

Mohaqher Iqbal, member of the MILF Central Committee and the group's chief peace negotiator with the government, said the kidnappers were flagged down by group members not far from the site of abduction.

He said his group has signed an agreement with the government to help security forces track down lawless groups operating in the country's predominantly Muslim provinces, most of them in the southern parts of Mindanao Island.

The army earlier said four Westerners and their driver were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Pikit town.

The four were heading to another town for a business transaction when armed men stopped them in a remote village in Pikit, said U.S. national Sharon Jackson, one of the four victims.

She said on local television that the kidnappers tied the hands of her German husband and the Filipino driver, took their cell phones, bags and passports, and forced them onto a motorcycle. The other victim was a Filipino woman.

The police and the military said the abduction could be the work of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang, which has ties to the MILF engaged in peace negotiations with the government.

Foreign embassies in the Philippines have continuously warned their citizens not to travel to strife-torn regions in the southern Philippines which are home to the country's Muslim rebels, communist guerillas and several kidnap-for-ransom groups preying on foreigners.

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