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ZAMBOANGA, Philippines — The mother of an American held hostage in the southern Philippines has appealed anew to a Muslim extremist group to free him. 

In a telephone call from her home in Oakland, California, to a radio station in Zamboanga City, Carol Schilling said she was worried about her son, Jeffrey, who was seized by members of the Abu Sayyaf group on southern Jolo island in August. 

“I appeal to the Abu Sayyaf to free my son, Jeffrey, in the name of Ramadan,” Islam’s holiest month, she said in the call late Tuesday to the Radio Mindanao Network. 

Schilling, a Muslim convert, was seized by the Abu Sayyaf after he visited their camp with his Filipino wife. His wife, a cousin of one of the rebel leaders, was not abducted. 

The rebels said Schilling was a CIA agent, which he denied. 

Later, the rebels demanded $10 million in ransom for Schilling, but the government and the U.S. Embassy refused to pay, and instead the Philippine military launched a rescue operation to free him and another hostage, Filipino Roland Ulla. 

In a call to the same radio station in September, Schilling’s mother pleaded with the rebels to release him unharmed. 

“Jeffrey is not your enemy and I am not your enemy,” she said. 

In another interview last month, Schilling said he is being kept in chains, has an infection in his leg and is losing hope that he will be released. He said he was becoming “less and less optimistic every day.” 

Schilling, 24, said the rebels holding him travel at night to escape pursuing military troops. He said no doctors are available to treat his infected leg and he had no medicine. 

An Abu Sayyaf spokesman told the radio station last month that the rebel leader who had custody of Schilling, Abu Sabaya, was lost at sea and feared dead after his boat capsized in rough waters while traveling from Jolo to Tawi-Tawi, farther south. 

Jolo is about 950 kilometers (595 miles) south of Manila. 

The spokesman said Schilling was not with them at the time and that he was in the custody of rebel chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani at an undisclosed hide-out. 

The military could not confirm the report about Sabaya and expressed doubts about it. 

Since the start of Ramadan, the Abu Sayyaf have stopped contacting local radio stations. 

Ulla, the Filipino hostage, is the last of a group of 21 tourists and workers abducted from a Malaysian diving resort in April still held by the rebels. More than dlrs 15 million in ransom was paid for the release of the others, according to negotiators. 

The Abu Sayyaf claims it is fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines, but the military regards it as a bandit gang.