Hundreds of troops have sealed off an area in the Philippines where gunmen are thought to be holding Irish priest Fr Michael Sinnott.
Major General Benjamin Dolorfino said the military has also asked for help from the country's largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to free the 78-year-old Columban missionary.
Fr Sinnott was taken at gunpoint by six men who stormed his home in Pagadian City on Sunday.
Witnesses said the priest was bundled into a van and later dragged to a boat.
Major General Dolorfino said the military had identified the kidnapper as Guingona Samal, a notorious pirate leader in the Zamboanga peninsula.
He said it is thought Fr Sinnott had been passed on to Muslim rebels as part of a ransom plot.
Today's announcement is the first public statement by authorities that they knew who was behind the abduction.
‘We're trying to seal off the area where the priest was last seen over the last 24 hours,’ Mr Dolorfino said, adding troops were trying to prevent the kidnappers from moving the priest to another location.
Mr Dolorfino said Fr Sinnott was abducted by a kidnap-for-ransom group that was not aligned to the MILF.
Mohaqher Iqbal, a senior MILF leader and head of the rebels' peace negotiating panel, said he had mobilised his forces to pinpoint the exact location of the priest.
He told Reuters: 'We're ready to help the government recover the priest.'
Six armed gunmen kidnapped Fr Sinnott on Sunday night from his home at the Missionary Society of Saint Columban compound in Pagadian City on southern Mindanao Island.
They took him away by speed boat and he is now believed to be held about 30km from Pagadian in a remote area adjoining the Zamboanga peninsula which is a stronghold of MILF.
The MILF has been fighting since 1978 for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic nation.
Mr Dolorfino said the military had received intelligence reports that Fr Sinnott may now be in the hands of Latip Jamat, local MILF commander.
The head of the Columban Missionaries in the Philippines, Patrick O'Donoghue, said today that he had not received any ransom demand.
