Abu Sayyaf
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The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) (Arabic: جماعة أبو سياف), or simply Abū Sayyāf, also known as Al Harakat Al Islamiyya, is deemed a "foreign terrorist organization" by the United States government. Specifically, it is an Islamist separatist group based in and around the southern islands of the Republic of the Philippines, primarily Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao.
Since inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion in their fight for an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, with a claimed overarching goal of creation of a Pan-Islamic superstate across the Malay portions of Southeast Asia, spanning from east to west,
the large island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago (Basilan and Jolo islands), the large island of Borneo (Malaysia, Indonesia), the South China Sea, and the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar).
The name of the group is Arabic for Father (Abu) of the Sword (Sayyaf).
Location and overview
The founder and the current leader of Abu Sayyaf, respectively the elder and younger two Janjalani brothers, originate from Isabela City, currently one of the smallest and poorest, or 5th class, cities of the Philippines. Located on the north of the island of Basilan, Isabela is also the capital of Basilan province, across the Basilan Strait from Zamboanga City. But Isabela City is administrated under the Zamboanga Peninsula political region north of the island of Basilan, while the rest of the island province of Basilan is now (since 1996) governed as part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to the east.
Consequently, being on the social or political division line, Isabela City and Basilan island have seen some of the fiercest fightings between government troops and the Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyaf through the early 2000s.
The ASG primarily operates in the southern Philippines with members occasionally traveling to Manila. It is reported that ASG has begun expanding into neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia by the early 2000s.
The ASG is the one of the smallest but strongest of the Islamic separatist groups in Mindanao. Some ASG members have allegedly studied or worked in Saudi Arabia and developed ties to mujahadeen while fighting and training in the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Abu Sayyaf is estimated to have a core membership of 200 with an extended membership of over 2000. The ASG's low numbers indicate a lack of support among the local population.
The group was originally not thought to receive funding from any government, but intelligence reports from the United States, Indonesia, and Australia have found intermittent ties to the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group. The Philippine government considers ASG to be allied with Jemaah Islamiyah and notes that initial funding came from al-Qaeda. Continuing ties to Islamist groups in the Middle East indicate that al-Qaeda may be continuing support.
Khadaffy Janjalani is named as the current nominal leader of the group by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
History
In the early 1970s, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was the main Muslim rebel group fighting in the Basilan and Mindanao region of the southern Philippines.After the late 1970s, Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, Khadaffy Janjalani's young adult older brother, became a teacher from Basilan, who studied theology and Arabic in Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia during the 1980s. Abdurajik then became a veteran of the war against the Soviet Union during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. During that time, he allegedly met Osama Bin Laden, and was given $6 million to establish his own offshoot group in the southern Philippines, out of members of the extant MNLF.
By then, as a political solution in the southern Philippines, ARMM had been created, in 1989.
Abu Sayyaf Group under Abdurajik Janjalani
Abdurajik then returned home to Basilan island in 1990, where he gathered radical members of the old MNLF, to found Abu Sayyaf Group. It was named after his own alias, which was Abu Sayyaf. MNLF had moderated into an established political party, which eventually became the ruling party of the ARMM, by the time of its full institutionalization in 1996 on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.Meanwhile, Abu Sayyaf Group had started out on their own by 1991 under the leadership of the elder Janjalani brother, Abdurajik. By 1995 Abu Sayyaf had been active in large scale bombings and attacks in the Philippines, and also had become associated with Ramzi Yousef (of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1994 Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bombing, and the foiled 1995 Operation Bojinka), and also with Jemaah Islamiyah (al-Qaeda's southeast Asia associated branch led by Hambali [nbr.org (pdf)]).
Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, both of whom were involved with Operation Bojinka, allegedly took scuba trips to Puerto Galera. The trips may have been a cover for the training of Abu Sayyaf terrorists.
After Ramzi Yousef bombed Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese passenger, a man stated in a telephone call, "We are [the] Abu Sayyaf Group. We explode[d] one plane from Cebu." The bombing was perpetrated as a test run for Operation Bojinka, which was discovered by Manila police on January 6, 1995.
At some point in the early 1990s, the younger brother Khadaffy Janjalani had also joined Abu Sayyaf, as a teenager, and was eventually imprisoned by the Philippines government.
Abu Sayyaf's first large-scale action was the beachhead assault on the town of Ipil in Mindanao in April 1995.
Also in 1995, 20 year-old Khadaffy Janjalani escaped from Camp Crame in Manila along with another member named Jovenal Bruno.
On December 18, 1998 the founding older brother Abdurajik Janjalani was killed in a firefight with the Philippine National Police on Basilan island. He is thought to have been about age 39 at the time of his death.
The death of Aburajik Abubakar Janjalani marked a turning point in ASG operations, shifting from its ideological focus to more general kidnappings, murders and robberies, as the younger brother Khadaffy Janjalani then rose to succeed Aburajik.
Abu Sayyaf Group under Khadaffy Janjalani
The 23 year-old Khadaffy Janjalani then took power of one of Abu Sayyaf's factions in an internecine struggle. He then worked to consolidate his power within Abu Sayyaf, causing the group to appear inactive for a period. After Janjalani's supremacy was secured, Abu Sayyaf began a new tactic, as they proceeded to take hostages.
The group's motive for kidnapping became more financial and less religious during the period of Khadaffy's leadership, according to locals in the areas associated with Abu Sayyaf. The hostage money is probably the method of financing of the group. [Information on new tactics]
The group expanded its operations to Malaysia in 2000 when it abducted foreigners from two different resorts. It is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of more than 30 foreigners and Christian clerics and lay-workers, including Martin and Gracia Burnham.
A commander named Abu Sabaya was killed in 2002 while trying to evade forces.[ict.org].
Galib Andang, aka Commander Robot, was captured in Sulu in December 2003.
A blast at a military base on Jolo island on February 18, 2006 was blamed on Abu Sayyaf by Brig. General Alexander Aleo, an Army officer. [(BBC)]
Khadaffy Janjalani was indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for his alleged involvement in terrorist acts, including hostage taking by Abu Sayyaf and murder, against United States nationals and other foreign nationals in and around the Republic of the Philippines.
Consequently on February 24, 2006, Janjalani was among six fugitives in the second and most recent group of indicted fugitives to be added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list along with two fellow members of Abu Sayyaf, Isnilon Totoni Hapilon and Jainal Antel Sali, Jr.
References
External links
- [FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists wanted poster of Khaddafy Janjalani at fbi.gov]
- [PBS article about Khaddafy Janjalani]
- [Asia Times: "Philippines the second front in war on terror?"]
- [Looking for al-Qaeda in the Philippines]
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