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November 15, 2006

Philippines: Islamist Bombing Campaign Aimed At Mindanao

News from the Manila Standard, Reuters AlertNet, International Herald Tribune, Zamboanga Sun Star, the Peninsula, Deutsche Presse Agentur and the Philippine Star and Manila Times details the current state of Islamic militancy in the Philippines.

This morning, police announced that they had arrested an alleged suspect involved in the string of bomb attacks which took place on October 10 and 11 in southwestern Mindanao. Six people were killed at Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat, Makilala City in North Cotabato province and at Cotabato city. The governor of North Cotabato Province, Emmanuel Pinol, had said the bombs were the work of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and for a while, charges were laid against Murad Ebrahim, leader of the MILF. These charges were later withdrawn. MILF is currently engaged in peace negotiations with the Filipino government, which had recently stalled.

The suspect for the October bombings has been named as Blah Platon . He was arrested near Tacurong City on Monday morning. Police spokesman Willie Dangane said: "We caught him carrying a bomb fashioned from a 105mm mortar and several blasting caps that were all placed in a black bag."

Blah, a resident of Miguandano, had been subject to a bounty of 175,000 Philippine Pesos ($3,490). He was captured after several days of police surveillance. Dangane said that Blah had revealed vital information and named other individuals during interrogation. He also said that Blah had been involved in blasts which took place in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, in 2003, which killed 12 and injured more than 50 others. At least four blasts took place. One on May 10 killed nine people and wounded 40. On July 11, another blast killed three, including an 11 year old girl. Most of the injured in the July attack had been children.

Blah had also been part of a group which had abducted several employees of the PNOC petrochemical company several years ago, and also a Chinese businessman in M'lang, North Cotabato province.

The information which Blah has revealed is disturbing for residents on Mindanao. he was trained by Jemaah Islamiyah, the mainly Indonesian terror group which carried out the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, which killed 202 people, and on October 1 last year, which killed 20.

According to Chief Superintendent German Doria, a regional police chief, Blah Plaon has said that Jemaah Islamiyah is planning to carry out large-scale bomb attacks on the cities of Davao and Cotabato. Blah had said that 50 improvised bombs were to be shipped to the target areas within the year.

Intelligence reports have said that there are six foreign bombers from Jemaah Islamiyah who are hiding out with Muslim militants in the southern Philippines. These comprise four Indonesians, a SIngaporean and a Malaysian. The information on these individuals came from Istiada Binti Oemar Sovie, the wife of a leading Jemaah Islamiyah activist called Dulmatin. The woman is currently awaiting deportation for trying to enter the Philippines illegally. Her husband is currently hiding with Islamist militants on the island of Jolo in the maritime province of Sulu. He is accompanied by another leading Jemaah Islamiyah activist, Umar Patek.

According to Chief Supt. Romeo Ricardo, director of the National Police Intelligence Group, the intentions of Jemaah Islamiyah to mount a bombing campaign in the southern Philippines have been formulated for some time. He said that Dulmatin and Patek could not find potential suicide bombers from the Filipino militants. As a result, they were forced to look for suicide bombers from Indonesia who would be prepared to mount attacks in the Philippines.

Ricardo said: "Based on intelligence reporting around last year... Umar Patek was communicating with his contacts in Indonesia asking his contacts to recruit suicide bombers from among the militants in Indonesia."

The six people named by Istiada Binti Oemar Sovie, Dulmatin's wife, are believed to be mounting the recruitment of suicide bombers for the Philippines bombing campaign.

Ricardo said: "We learned that they were also seeking recruits from Java and Sulawesi to carry out suicide bomb attacks in the Philippines because they could not find any volunteer among Filipino rebels."

So farm in decades of Islamic militancy in the Philippines, there has never been a Filipino suicide bomber to date.

Ricardo also said that the authorities were monitoring the activities of Christian converts to Islam, from the Rajah Solaiman Movement, who appeared to be planning attacks upon Manila, the capital. These individuals had been monitored around Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Cavite and Bulucan. Ricardo claimed that two or three members, who had been trained by Jemaah Islamiyah on Mindanao may be planning simultaneous bombings in densely populated areas.

However, Ricardo said that the Rajah Solaiman movement had been severely weakened and there were no more than 20 active militants left.

The problem of Islamic militancy in the Philippines has a complex history. In the south of the archipelago, on the large island of Mindanao, a large proportion of the population are Muslim, mostly of the Moro or Bangsamoro ethnic groups. Three million Muslims live on Mindanao. There were two sultanates in the south, one based at Sulu and the other at Miguandanao in the west of Mindanao, centered around the region which is now included within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM, near Cotabato. While the rest of the Philippines became Christian, these sultanates resisted and retained their Islamic identity.

The sultanate of Miguandanao still continues, but in name only. On January 11 this year, the 25th sultan of Miguandanao, Datu Amir Baraguir, was shot dead. He may have been killed by Islamists, as, prior to becoming the sultan in 2005, he ran a newspaper column, in which he encouraged Muslims and Christians to live together.

Historically, when the Spaniards under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in Manila Bay in the late 16th century, Muslim imperialism was already taking place in Maynilad (as the main center of Luzon island was then known), under the leadership of Rajah Soliman (Sulayman), who originally came from Borneo. Now, 84% of the population is Christian, and 7% is Muslim.

The term Bangsamoro means in Malay "Moro homeland", and is now used to define 11 ethnic groups. There have been two major movements to "liberate" the southern Moro peoples from Filipino rule. These are the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), traditionally based in the Liguasan marsh of Mindanao and formed in 1977, and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The latter group are led by . When the ARMM was officially inaugurated on November 6, 1990, Nur Misauri, head of MNLF, was made its first governor. This followed a peace deal, signed on August 30, 1996, brokered by Indonesia.

After being governor of ARMM for five years, Misauri went back to his roots as a rebel. In November 2001, he ordered an attack upon an army base in Jolo (Sulu province) and then became a fugitive in Malaysia, thence deported back to the Philippines, where he is currently in jail. Despite his history as a trouble-maker, the OIC countries see Misauri as the representative of the Moro peoples.

MILF had an estimated 2,900 "soldiers" at the end of last year, but in December it seems they began a recruitment campaign which has swollen their numbers. They led a brief insurgency against the Philippines government in 1987, but have recently been engaged in protracted peace talks with the Filipino government, which have been brokered by Malaysia. Last month, the peace talks stalled over disputes about the size of territory to be under their control. Murad Ibrahim leads the MILF.

Historically, MILF had been linked with Jemaah Islamiyah since the 1990s, when they both took part in running the Hudaybiyah terror training camp in western Mindanao. The leader of Jemaah Islamiyah at that time was Hambali, or Nurjaman Riduan Ismuddin. Hambali was arrested in Thailand on August 15, 2003. He is now residing in Guantanamo.

To add to the mix of dissidents in the Philippines, there are the Islamist groups who use terrorism to achieve similar goals to the MNLF and MILF.

The group Abu Sayyaf, formed in the 1980s is more involved in banditry than political aims, and specializes in kidnappings and beheadings. It set bombs on a ferry carrying 900 passengers in the Bay of Manila on February 27, 2004. The ensuing fire on the ship saw 116 people killed. Abu Sayyaf's center of operations include Miguandanao and Mindanao, the island of Basilan, and also the island of Jolo. The leader of Abu Sayyaf is Khaddafy Janjalani, who has a $10 million bounty on his head from the US Rewards for Justice scheme.

A smaller group involved in insurgent activities is Abu Sofia. On January 2005 its leader Bebis Binago was killed but the group, which is allied to Abu Sayyaf, continues to exist. It has some links with MILF. In July, three Abu Sofia operatives were arrested in Sultan Kudarat in Miguandanao.

The other faction in Islamic radicalism is drawn from the tradition of "Balik Islam" - the converts from Catholicism who regard themselves as returning to their roots. They call themselves "reverts" and believe that if Miguel Lopez de Legazpi had not been successful, the Philippines would have been entirely Muslim by now.

The faction from these converts which is involved in terrorism is called Rajah Solaiman, after the 16th century Borneo-born ruler of Luzon. This group is small, but has allied itself with both Abu Sayyaf and the larger, al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

On February 14 2005, members of Rajah Solaiman, Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf joined forces to carry out a series of multiple bombings, known as the Valentine's Day bombings. A bus in Makati city, Manila's financial district was bombed, killing four, and other bombs took place in Davao. Eight people died and more than 150 people were killed in the Valentine's Day attacks. Rajah Solaiman are active on Luzon (Manila) and also around the region of Zamboanga province on Mindanao, where they act as "couriers" for Abu Sayyaf. Last September Abu Sayyaf had mounted a recruitment campaign in the Zamboanga region, trying to attract Christian converts to it cause.

The groups listed above, sharing a common purpose of independence from the Philippines, have links with each other. From November 11, 2005 until a truce was made on January 20, members of MNLF joined with Abu Sayyaf on the island of Jolo, and mounted an insurgency against Filipino troops stationed on the island. Abu Sayyaf on Jolo is led by the one-armed horse-riding local leader Radullan Sahiron. The truce was brokered by MNLF leader Nur Misauri from his jail cell.

Some Abu Sayyaf members had been hiding on Mindanao, in the Liguasan Marsh on Mindanao, territory of the MILF. Last year, two Jemaah Islamiyah leaders, Dulmatin and Umar Patek had taken refuge there. It is believed they found refuge with a senior MILF leader who was in conflict with his group. Dulmatin (real name Amar bin Usman, pictured right) and Patek are wanted for their role in the October 12, 2002, bombings on Bali which killed 202 people. the US is offering a bounty of $10 million for Dulmatin, and $1 million for Umar Patek.

As a result, the Liguasan Marsh region was bombed by Filipino forces in November and again in January. About 20 Abu Sayyaf members, including the leader Khadaffy Janjalani and also Dulmatin and Umar Patek fled to the island of Jolo. Two other JI members, Zulkifli bin Hir and Abdul Rahman Ayub who were hiding with the Abu Sayyaf also fled. They took refuge in the south of the island.

There is an American presence on Jolo, though these are involved in training Philippines military rather than any active involvement in conflict. After US satellite imaging located the mountainside base, it was bombed by Filipino forces on August 1. The operation to capture or remove the Abu Sayyaf leadership and the JI activists on Jolo has continued since.

On October 6 it was announced that Dulmatin's wife, Istiada Oemar Sovie, aka Amenah Toha, had been captured as she tried to enter Jolo with her two children, aged 6 and 8.

Yesterday, It was announced by Associated Press that the names of the six Jemaah Islamiyah activists named by Dulmatin's wife appeared in a debriefing report. The Singaporean has been named as Manobo, and the four Indonesians have been identified as Baharin, Zae, Tom and Karim. The name of the Malaysian was not in the report. They are all believed to be with Dulmatin and Umar Patek in Sulu.

On Monday, a briefing attended by ambassadors from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan was hosted by Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, the command chief of Western Mindanao Armed Forces.

Cedo said that despite reports that Khadaffy Janjalani, head of Abu Sayyaf, and Dulmatin and Umar Patek had fled Jolo/Sulu to the island of Basilan, he said he was convinced that they remained in Sulu province. He said that troops were combing the jungles to find them. "As of now the operation is ongoing on the assumption that they are there in Sulu." he said.

Nine army and marine battalions, guided by US intelligence, have been engaged in the hunt for the terrorists.

An unnamed intelligence source has said that the terrorists have been looking for a fast boat that will take them out of Jolo without being noticed by the military. "There is a camp of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) at Puerto Santa Maria in Siocon [Zamboanga del Norte], aside from the Kalibugan tribesmen whom Janjalani could always rely on for protection while he and his group are in Zamboanga del Norte," the source said. "Janjalani is planning to retrace this escape route to Siocon, just the way they did when they transferred the Burnham couple out of Sulu."

The "Burnham couple" were Gracia and Martin Burnham, US missionaries, who were kidnapped on 27 May, 2001 from Dos Palmas resort on Palawan island, where they were on holiday, celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary. 20 people were kidnapped, including Guillermo Sobero from California. Within a month, the kidnappers announced that they had beheaded 40-year old Mr Guillermo, because Abu Sayyaf had wanted a military rescue operation to cease, and the new government of Gloria Arroyo had not capitulated to their demands.

On Monday October 8 a skull was found on a tree stump on the island of Basilan. Four days later it was confirmed that the skull, and bones discovered nearby, belonged to Guillermo Sobero. 12 Filipino hostages had been decapitated by the Abu Sayyaf by then. Three Filipinos had managed to escape. An attempt to rescue the Burnhams on June 7, 2002, ended in tragedy. Martin Burnham, who had been kept in chains, was shot dead, as was a Filipino nurse. Gracia Burnham was injured, but alive.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 15, 2006 8:14 AM

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