“Can we be friends?” Perhaps he viewed her as the spoils of war, after the example of Muhammad and his companions, who seized the wives of the men they had killed in jihad wars.
“Killers swapped messages with wife of marine,” from the SunStar (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
AFTER her husband Marine Private First Class Reuben S. Doronio Jr. was killed in an ambush in Basilan last July 10, Jomarie Doronio received several text messages from her husband’s killers.
One of them asked if he could befriend her. The others inquired about her well-being.
Either way, she could only feel disgust at their attempt to add insult to injury.
The communication began on the day her husband was killed, Jomarie said.
“Pasensya ka na. Nabalitaan naming napatay na ang mister nyo (We”re sorry. We heard that your husband has been killed),” was the text message she received from her husband’s cellular phone number.
“Bastos”
She and her sister-in-law Honeylee called the number but nobody answered.
The next day, the military camp in Basilan confirmed that Reuben was among the 14 marines killed in the encounter with Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels. They had been scouring the jungles for the kidnapped Italian priest, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, when they were attacked.
Ten of them were beheaded, including her husband, while some of the soldiers had their genitals cut off.
The mutilations spark-ed outrage across the country.
The two women called the acts “bastos” (barbaric).
Honeylee said the rebels again sent 10 more text messages to Jomarie, still using her brother’s number.
One of them was, “Puwede ba makigpag-kaibigan (Can we be friends)?”
Honeylee said the sender might have fallen for Jomarie after he saw her picture on her husband’s phone.
“Naibog gyud na nimo (He must like you),” Honeylee told Jomarie.
The messages only stopped when Honeylee told them, through text message, “One day, you will also suffer the pain we have at present.”