Western Resistance

« Turkey: Islamist Threats Cast Shadow Over Pope's Visit | | Iran: Cleric Authorizes the Murder of Journalist »

November 27, 2006

Philippines: Women Islamist Militants Hunted In South

Reuters AlertNet reports today that five women members of the Islamic terror group Jemaah Islamiyah are being hunted in the Muslim south.

The women are half of the complement of 10 Islamists who are being pursued by Philippine troops on the island of Jolo in the maritime province of Sulu. One of these is the wife of Umar Patek, who has a reward of $1 million on his head, from the US Rewards for Justice scheme. Umar Patek is believed to have been actively involved in the October 12, 2002 attack upon Bali, in which 202 people died.

Also on the run in Jolo is Dulmatin, a Javanese-Arabic member of Jemaah Islamiyah, who has a bounty of $10 million against him. he also goes under the name of Almar Usman, and is sometimes known as Joko Pitoyo, Joko Pitono, Abdul Matin, Pitono, Muktarmar, Djoko or Noval.

On Wednesday October 4 Dulmatin's wife, Istiada Binti Oemar Sovie, aka Amenah Toha, together with her two children, aged 6 and 8, had been arrested as she tried to enter Jolo illegally. She had been used by JI members on Jolo for logistic purposes. The militants got her to "do the marketing, to buy and cook food for them, attend to their needs, even nurse their wounds." She has undergone extensive interrogation before her deportation, and has revealed names of individuals who are hiding on Jolo. She is due to be deported to Indonesia in 10 days' time.

Lieutenant-General Romeo Tolentino said that despite Dulmatin's wife being in custody, it is still hard to find the Islamists on the island of Jolo, which is largely covered in forest.

Tolentino also said that it was hard to "go against the culture of the people in the area." He suggested that the residents on the island were not being deliberately obstructive, but were scared of retaliations, should they be seen to assist the authorities. One local leader of the terror group Abu Sayyaf on the island, the one-armed and horse-riding Radullan Sahiron. He has a fearsome reputation on the island of decapitating those he considers to be "collaborators".

Abu Sayyaf, formed in the 1980s is a Filipino group which is allied to Jemaah Islamiyah, but is less organized, and is more easily described as a "bandit group". Better known for kidnappings and beheadings, the group bombed a ferry in Manila bay on February 27, 2004. 116 people died in the attack. Au Sayyaf's leader, Khaddafy Janjalani, who has a $10 million bounty on his head from the US Rewards for Justice scheme, is also a fugitive being pursued by the army on Jolo.

After the October 1, 2005 Bali bombings, Dulmatin and Umar Patek had taken refuge in the Liguasan Marsh region of western Mindanao island, which is home territory for both Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF. Now involved in attempts to secure peace and autonomous territory on Mindanao, MILF had been linked with Jemaah Islamiyah since the 1990s, when both groups 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, who is now in Guantanamo. It is believed that at the end of last year, the Jemaah Islamiyah activists had found refuge with a senior MILF leader who was in conflict with his own group.

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.

The US has troops on Jolo, who are there to train Filipino forces, but they do not partake in military activities. However, they supplied aerial reconnaissance imagery, which led to the discovery of the hideout where the Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf fugitives were hiding. This location, on a forested mountainside, was bombed on August 1 by helicopter gunships and ground assault planes. 500 military were involved in the operation. SInce then periodic clashes have taken place, and at one stage, it was even believed that Umar Patek had been killed. In total, 20 soldiers have been killed and 90 wounded on Jolo since August 1. Around 50 Islamists are believed to have been killed, but only 13 bodies have been recovered.

There are four major terror groups in the Philippines - the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), founded in the 1970s, Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which split from MILF in 1977, Abu Sayyaf, which first emerged in 1991 as a splinter group of MNLF, and the communist New People's Army (NPA). Additionally, there are smaller groups, Abu Sofia and also the group formed from Christian converts to Islamism, Rajah Solaiman.

With the exception of NPA, all these groups have loose relations to each other. 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.

Today, AKI reports that MILF have announced in a statement that they blame the United States for the conflict in the south Philippines, which has lasted for decades. The statement by Jun Mantawil, who heads the peace negotiating team for MILF: "Our people had objected to joining the Filipinos in their quest for independence, but the United States government did not listen to our pleas and petitions to form a separate state or at least be treated as an American colony until our people would be ready for self-rule."

"The US could have prevented this conflict if they separated the Moros [the Muslims in the south] from the Filipinos, but they did not because greater US interests were better served by putting them together," he said.

Apparently in 1926, the US had consulted groups about Philippine independence, and the Moros had said they would rather live under US occupation than under Filipino rule, but this had been ignored. Eid Kabalu, spokesman for MILF, said that the late leader of the group, Salamat Hashim, had written to George W Bush in 2003. He had asked Washington for assistance in resolving the problems of Muslims in Mindanao. Bush had said that he would help, diplomatically and financially.

It seems that the US is now becoming more involved in peace negotiations. Until last month, MILF's peace talks with the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had been brokered by Malaysia, but talks had foundered over disputes on the smount of autonomous territory to be granted to MILF.

On Saturday, November 25, a leading Islamist of Abu Sayyaf was arrested in the southern island of Basilan. Annik Abbas was riding a motorcycle when he was apprehended at a checkpoint.

Abbas is said to have been one of the people who beheaded an American citizen, Guillermo Sobero from California (pictured left), on Basilan island. On May 27, 2001, about 20 people were kidnapped from the resort of Dos Palmas on Palawan island by Abu Sayyaf. These individuals were in the main holidaymakers, including three Americans, and Filipinos of Chinese origin. An American couple, Gracia and Martin Burnham from Wichita, Kansas, were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary when they were kidnapped.

Early accounts of the raid stated that the hostages had been separated into three groups and taken away. In June, 2001, Abu Sayyaf announced that they had beheaded Guillermo Sobero because Abu Sayyaf had wanted a military rescue operation to cease, and the newly instated government of Gloria Arroyo had not agreed to their demands. Four months after the kidnap, a skull was found on Monday October 8 on Basilan island.

The skull was discovered on a tree trunk. A pile of bones found which had been found nearby three days earlier were sent off for examination. On Friday October 12, it was confirmed that the skull and the bones belonged to Mr Guillermo.

The Wichita couple survived for longer than most of the kidnap victims, the majority of whom had been decapitated. Three had managed to escape their captors. A mission to rescue the Burnhams on June 7, 2002 ended in tragedy. Martin Burnham and one of the Filipino hostages, nurse Ediborah Yap, were killed. Gracia Burnham was rescued alive, but she had been shot in the thigh.

On Sunday March 12 this year, another Islamist believed to have been involved in the decapitation of Guillermo Sobero was captured. Burham Sali was caught in a raid on his hideout in Mindanao island. As well as being involved in the Dos Palmas kidnappings, Sali was also involved in the kidnapping of 29 people, including schoolteachers and 22 children, on the island of Basilan on 20 March, 2000.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 27, 2006 5:13 PM

Comments

Post a comment