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December 2, 2006

Philippines: Islamist Leader Arrested

News from INQ7, Associated Press, Reuters, AFP and DPA:

Security forces in the Philippines have announced today that a leading figure from an Islamist terror group was arrested on Thursday November 30, on the southern island of Basilan. Feliciano de los Reyes aka Ustadz Abubakar was one of the founders of the Rajah Solaiman movement (RSM).

Reyes had been arrested in 2002 in a raid on an RSM training camp at Anda town in the northern province of Pangasinan. He was charged with illegal possession of explosives, and was imprisoned for six months. He jumped bail after posting a bail bond of 200,000 pesos ($4,040).

Also arrested in the Anda town raid was Ahmad Islam Santos, aka Hilarion del Rosario Santos III, and he similarly jumped bail. Santos was the leader of RSM. Santos (pictured below left) was arrested with eight of his followers in San Jose Town, Zamboanga City, on October 26 last year.

Feliciano de los Reyes, who also goes under the name Jorge Castro, was captured by Marine and military intelligence troops as he sought refuge in the town of Lamitan, Basilan island. Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Caculitan, Philippines Marines information officer, said that Reyes was arrested around 6 pm on Thursday. He said he could not give further details on the circumstances of Reyes' arrest.

Caculitan said that Reyes had been involved in the bombing of Awang airport, Cotabato city on February 20, 2003, at Maguindanao province on the large island of Mindanao. A soldier was killed and three civilians had been wounded when a bomb made from an 81 millimeter mortar exploded beneath a van parked near the gate of the airport.

The Rajah Solaiman group is formed from Christian converts to Islam. Converts to "Balik Islam" in the Philippines are said to call themselves "reverts", as they believe that the Philippines would have been fully Muslim, were it not for the arrival of the Spanish under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi.

RSM names itself after Rajah Soliman (Sulayman), who originally came from Borneo, and ruled over a kingdom based in Maynilad, Luzon, where Manila now stands, when Legazpi arrived in the late 16th century.

RSM has links with the larger Islamic terror groups, such as Abu Sayyaf and the pan-southeast Asian group Jemaah Islamiyah or JI. The latter group, linked to Al Qaeda, carried out the October 12, 2002 bombings on Bali, killing 202 people, and the Bali bombs on October 1, 2005, which killed 20.

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.

Abu Sayyaf was originally formed from a small group which broke away from the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) 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.

Rajah Solaiman assisted Abu Sayyaf when it mounted a bomb attack upon a ferry on February 27, 2004. The SuperFerry 14, carrying 900 people was traveling from Manila, bound for Bacolod in the southern islands. While still in the Bay of Manila, a bomb went off, causing a fire in which 116 people died.

Last month, Chief Superintendent Romeo Ricardo, director of the national police intelligence group, told the press that the Philippines authorities were monitoring RSM members in Manila, who were thought to be planning bomb attacks. Ricardo said two or three of the group's members had been trained by Jemaah Islamiyah.

However, Ricardo said that the group had been severely weakened, and only had 15 to 20 militants left. A year ago, it was thought to have had 100 members.

The leader of RSM, Ahmad Santos, had converted to Islam in the 1990s, with help from the Islamic Studies Call and Guidance, which is linked by US intelligence to Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 2, 2006 8:29 AM

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