The Islamic Insurgents (catch all)

[Bill Moore]

http://jamaatubalikislam.jeeran.com/...st_muslims.htm

today, Islamic world is faced with certain extremely threatening problems. The tightening encirclement of arrogant enemies equipped with political and military power and technology, and the imposition of corruption, prostitution, intoxicants and drug vices, gambling and all related components of the West's culture, which annihilates Islamic countries and/or may lose their Islamic identies.

With Afghanistan and now Iraq and the Philippines crisis, present a unique opportunity to proceed towards the long-cherished goal of Muslim unity. An overwhelming majority of the Muslim states views the issue a grave one and favors some immediate action. The Muslim world must provide representation to Mujahideen in the various international bodies, supply resources to Mujahideen and build continue support for them through international media.

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?...ial_may02_2005

The arrest of Balik Islam recruit Dawud Santos last March 23 in Cubao, Quezon City led to a raid where 600 kg of explosives were seized.
Not exactly your ordinary next-door neighbor, Santos has a brother, Akhmad, who heads the Rajah Solaiman Movement with links to the Abu Sayyaf Group that was all set to mount a major attack last Holy Week.
Dawud posted bail last April 27. Curiously, he was arrested in May 2002 in a Balik Islam boot camp in Anda, Pangasinan but was released on bail.

http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=4690

The Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) is a terrorist organization dedicated to creating an Islamic state in the Philippines. The group represents a radical and militarized fringe of the greater “Balik Islam” (return to Islam) movement, which is made up of people who grew up as Roman Catholics that have since converted to Islam.

RSM is relatively small in size, and most of its members converted to Islam through marriage or by virtue of their work environment as overseas contract laborers in the Middle East. Some members already have well-established reputations as Roman Catholics, and some do not take Muslim names as is customary for other converts. The membership is mostly made up of locals from the main Filipino island of Luzon, which gives RSM the advantage of local knowledge.

This is just a sampling of hits found by typing Balik Islam into the MSN search engine. While it is far from being a doomsday scenario there are concerns that need to be addressed.

[Jedburgh]

An older (20 Apr 06) article from the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor speaks to this issue, although it is, by its own admission, a mixture of analysis and conjecture:

Christian Converts and Islamic Terrorism in the Philippines

...The Rationale Behind the Presumed RSRM-JI Nexus

There are at least four factors that would seem to have salience in terms of explaining the emergent nexus noted above. First, many BI members (the movement from which the RSRM is drawn) are either based in or have intimate knowledge of Manila. This facet makes Christian converts uniquely suited for carrying out attacks that are able to impact directly on the seat of national political, economic and cultural power....

...Second, and very much related to the above, because RSRM cadres do not originate from ethnic Moro Muslim backgrounds, they are less likely to be identified as Islamist terrorists....

...Third, and directly related to the above two points, it would be extremely difficult for JI to act independently in the Philippines given the enormous ethnic and linguistic diversity that exists across the Republic....

...Finally, since the RSRM is made up of converts to Islam, the group arguably has more to prove in validating the credibility of its jihadist credentials...

Personally, although I do not have the benefit of Pinoyme's local knowledge, I do not agree with his statement that convert terrorists would be "fish out of water" when operating in the traditionally Catholic areas of Manila, etc. Remember the key word convert. They were raised in the same Catholic tradition, and although they are now converted radicals, they possess the in-depth knowledge necessary to blend in when operational. Of course, this really applies to hard core terrorists; someone who is simply is a convert with radical beliefs would not be concerned with blending in and would stand out just as Pinoyme suggested.

However, the Philippine authorities are well aware of this threat, and the US has made significant strides towards effective sharing of intel with them in this regard. But the local authorities are certainly challenged by the manning and equipping issues in the spectrum of threat they face, from ASG and RSRM to the NPA and all the other various criminal gangs, pedophile sex tourists and just general crime in between.

[pinoyme]

Hi:

Believe you me, the Islamic terrorist threat is much greater in London than it is in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, or other Philippine urban centers.

The Manila Standard story on arrests of Rajah Soliman and Balik Islam movement members shows once more how easy they are to monitor in the Philippines.

Islamic converts who are now terrorists can easily blend with Catholic crowds?

Wrong.

Filipinos are a highly sociable people. When a Filipino OFW returns from abroad, that immediately becomes news in his neigborhood. And his friends and neighbors come to visit him.

If he has converted, that is really big news and everyone in his neighborhood will know it. Which of course means that if law enforcement authorities put out an alert, the barangay tanods or community police would put a watch on him as a matter of course.

The fact that an Islamic convert no longer eats pork already makes him stand out in urban neigborhoods. This is because lechon, the chief Philippine festive serving consists of whole roast pig.



Meanwhile, sorry for the delayed response. I have been doing other things lately.

Cheers.

[pinoyme]

Hi:

My apologies if this post shall be considered as flooding.

But my previous entry failed to take into account Mr. Jedburgh's comment to mine.

Yes, Islamic converts who are hard-core terrorists could truly pose a threat when operational.

But how many are they really?

And how much damage have they caused all these years since 9/11? Not much really. In Metro Manila, bank robbers and carjackers have done more harm to the megapolis' population since Sept. 11, 2001.

Incidentally, steps have been taken to harden the most obvious targets. The fact that the security guard agency sector ( watchmen services in US parlance) is among the largest employers of working class Filipinos has helped immensely in this regard.

That there are at least twice as many armed security guards in the Philippines as there are AFP troopers has been a cultural quirk here since the end of World War 2.

One unintended consequence is that this strategic reserve --a good number of whose members are ex-servicemen--has now been mobilized in the Philippine front in the global war on terror.

Cheers.