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November 17, 2005
Philippines: Islamic Militants Resume Battles in South
Today, a report from the Philippines' Sun Star states that a prominent leader of the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf, Jatib Usman, has been killed in ongoing clashes between rebels and the military. Usman was confronted in the most southeastern province of Tawi-Tawi, an island region which is close to the Borneo coast of Malaysia.
The gun battle took place in the village of Buan, in Panglima Sugala town. Usman, aka Commander Milikan, was killed by troops, along with two of his henchmen, Pulah Alih and Faizal Mutia on Wednesday. Uslam's son Aldren Amil was also captured. After the clashes with Usman's followers, security forces recovered an M16 and two M1 automatic rifles.
Abu Sayyaf is prominent in the southern islands which are a short boat-ride to Malaysia. Abu Sayyaf (the name means "bearer of the Sword" or "Father of the Swordsman" in Arabic") are linked to Jemaah Islamiyah. They are active in Mindanao, where they have been involved in terrorist activities in Zamboanga against military targets, and have a stronghold in Jolo. Their activities on Tawi-Tawi have been getting worse recently.
Jatib Usman's control over the local populace had been fierce, with villagers forced to pay "taxes" to Abu Sayyaf. He is believed to have been responsible for the killing of a 58 yea old farm caretaker and his son, after they failed to pay their "taxes".
He is also viewed as one of the instigators of a kidnapping from May 2000 in which 21 Asian and Western holiday-makers were kidnapped in Sipadan in Malaysia, and the kidnapping of three sailors off the coast of Tawi-Tawi in May 2004.
Last month, a gunfight in Tawi-Tawi between Philippines security forces and gunmen left one policeman dead and two of the gunmen killed, and eight other government security agents injured. The firefight happened on Monday October, according to Sun Star. The identity of the gunmen was not known, as they could have been pirates or Abu Sayyaf members. The fighting started after a security patrol was fired upon.
Over the past year members of Abu Sayyaf on Tawi-Tawi have kidnapped Indonesian sailors and Chinese fisherman. The natives of Tawi-Tawi generally speak Samal, and Tausang dialect, and the main island has the oldest mosque in the Philippines.
We related earlier the battles which had been going on in Jolo Island in the Philippines, in the administrative province of Sulu. Islamists from Abu Sayyaf, and also rebels from the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front). The fighting had started on Saturday, when a group of soldiers on patrol became ambushed while patrolling near the village of Buwansa. Four soldiers and about twenty militants were killed. The fighting had continued through the weekend. Prominent in the skirmishes was the one-armed Abu Sayyaf local leader, called Sahiron Radullon, who rides a horse.
By early Monday, the situation had died down enough for the army to announce that the situation had been contained, according to abs-cbn news, even though 1,000 families from Buwansa had been forced to flee the region. Civilians were being harrassed in Panamao and Indanan the neighbouring municipality to Jolo town. Military personnel were stationed near populated regions, to offer protection. The leader of the local division of Abu Sayyaf, one-armed and horse-riding Radulan Sahiron had been leading the insurgence.
Later on Monday, an Abu Sayyaf camp was overrun by troops in Bud Kapok near Indanan, stated news.inq7. At that time operations against the Abu Sayyaf militants and MNLF rebels were being hampered by heavy rains. Another camp had been discovered in the same region, at Marang village. ing7 news announced that the Marang camp was used by MNLF rebels, supporters of the imprisoned former leader, Nur Misauri. Ammunition for rockets, as well as mortars and grenade launchers were found in the camps.
On the night of Tuesday/Wednesday, the clashes began again, with Abu Sayyaf members attacking civilian targets on Jolo, with mortar bombs being fired on the village of Siit, at Panamao. No civilians were hurt, stated abs-cbn,news.
Gen. Generoso Senga, the Armed Forces chief, announced that the mortar attacks had started on Tuesday evening and continued on Wednesday morning. He said the rebels appeared to be regrouping, and that his forces were preparing for more conflicts.
The association of Abu Sayyaf and rebel members of MNLF is not surprising. According to the BBC, Abu Sayyaf was originally formed from a small group which broke away from the MNLF in 1991. The group took its name from a legendary Mujahideen fighter from the late 1980s in Afghanistan. Many Abu Sayyaf members had also fought in the Afghan/Soviet conflict.
The leader of MNLF was Nur Misauri, but after an attack upon an army base on Jolo in November 2001, he fled to Malaysia. He was deported back to the Philippines and has been imprisoned on rebellion charges. Many of the MNLF rebels are still his supporters, and Abu Sayyaf itself continues to draw recruits from MNLF.
In December 1994, Abu Sayyaf bombed a Philippines Airlines passenger plane en route to Tokyo, killing one person. Most of their operations are concentrated around the large island of Mindanao as well as having strongholds on Jolo and other small islands in the south of the archipelago.
The founding member of Abu Sayyaf, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjali, was killed in a fight with the Philippne army in 1998. One of their most notorious leaders was commander "Robot", or Galib Andang, who was finally injured and captured in December 2003. "Robot" had been also involved with Usman in the kidnapping of tourists from the Malaysian resort of Sipadan in 2000. When he was finally apprehended, after being shot in the legs, "Robot" (pictured above) was on the island of Jolo, at Panabuan village in Indanan town.
The most recent large-scale atrocity was the bombing of a ferry in February 27, 2004. The ferry was carrying 900 people when it set off from Manila, bound for Bacolod in the southern islands. The bomb set off a fire while the ship was in the Bay of Manila, which killed 116 people. The head of Abu Sayyaf, Khaddafy Janjalani, is wanted by both the Philipines and the US. Before the ferry was bombed, he claimed in a statement to have sent three warning letters to the ships' owners, WG&A. The company acknowledged that they had received the threats, but had sold the ship to new owners in 2002.
An article by Amirah Ali Lidasan a founder of the Suara Bangsamoro political group, published in Philippine News on Wednesday makes the claim that though Abu Sayyaf is dangerous, their impact is exaggerated to allow the government to go after Muslim activists with genuine grievances.
"The Abu Sayyaf has really no support among the people. They bleed families dry, and they don't have a community. They don't stay around to help or defend communities," she said. "Abu Sayyaf was originally an offshoot of the MNLF. They were youth zealots who did not believe in peace negotiations, but one can't really call them (idealists) revolutionaries because they do deals with the government in the arms trade."
The Moro peoples who live in the south, and are concentrated particularly on Mindanao, converted to Islam in the 14th century, and have a history of resisting Catholic rule from the time of the Spanish colonialisation of the islands.
Recently there have been a number of Christians converting to Islam. We reported earlier on the use of Christian mercenaries by Abu Sayyaf. Some of these converts, who like to call themselves "reverts", have been involved with terror activities against civilians in Zamboanga and Lanao province on the island of Mindanao. We reported the case of Hilarion del Rosario Santos III (aka Ahmed Islam Santos) who was arrested on October 26, with eight other followers of the Rajah Solaiman Movement.
The name "Rajah Soliman" has a historic basis, according to Dan Mariano. It was the name of the Muslim ruler of Maynilad at the time of the Spanish arrival in the 16th century. Maynilad was the name used then by inhabitants of the pre-conquest Philippines. Though a romantic figure to today's "reverts" to Islam, and also to the Bangsamoro peoples, Soliman was in fact a ruler of Borneo, who had only invaded the region of the Pasig River in Manila Bay shortly before the Spaniards arrived, in the personages of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his retinue.
Despite claims from many observers that Abu Sayyaf is a haphazard lawless group, it has nonetheless forged alliances with Jemaah Islamiyah, a more focused group who aim to see the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand combined into an Islamic "super-state." For this reason alone, Abu Sayyaf should be considered as a threat to stability in the region.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 17, 2005 7:59 PM
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