The Islamic Insurgents (catch all)

[SWJED]

4 August Manila Times - US Intelligence Guides Hunters of Abu Sayyaf by Al Jacinto.

Guided by intelligence given by the US Army, Filipino troops on Thursday continued their assault on suspected lairs of the Abu Sayyaf in Jolo for the third straight day.

The military is hot on the trail of Khadaffy Janjalani, the Abu Sayyaf chieftain, and two Jemaah Islamiya leaders, Umar Patek and Dulmatin.

Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, chief of the Southern Command, ordered the assault on the terrorist groups after verifying reports that members of the Abu Sayyaf were holed up in the town of Indanan.

“The Southern Command is conducting an extensive operation to drive out the terrorists permanently from the region,” Habacon said.

“We have been tracking them down, and now the time has come [to finish them off].”

According to reports, Patek is an Indonesian explosives expert, and Dulmatin is a Malaysian electronics expert.

Both JI members, the two are said to be behind the 2002 bombings of an establishment frequented by foreign tourists in Bali, Indonesia, during which 200 people were killed. Soon after, they also allegedly masterminded the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, also in Indonesia. They eluded a massive manhunt and fled in August 2003 to Mindanao.

“We have reports that the two JI bombers are in Jolo, but it is difficult to confirm if they are with the Abu Sayyaf fighting our soldiers,” said Army Col. Antonio Supnet, chief of staff of the Southern Command in Zamboanga City.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which controls Indanan, has assured the military it will deny the terrorist group sanctuary. The MNLF signed a peace accord with Manila in 1996.

A US Army contingent helps in the campaign by providing satellite snapshots of the area of operation. It happened to be in Jolo to conduct a joint antiterrorism exercise with Filipino soldiers when the Abu Sayaff was spotted.

“Our friends in the US military are helping us,” Supnet said. “They are not involved in combat operations, but they are providing us with intelligence support.”

Navy Cdr. Kathy Wright, a spokesman for the US military, said the American soldiers are also helping to evacuate wounded soldiers. She added that the assistance is being extended at the request of the host government.

A US EP3 Orion reconnaissance plane routinely flies over Jolo, presumably to spot the terrorists’ position, although the spokesman denied the speculation...

The US government is equal*ly eager to capture the remaining members of the Abu Sayyaf. It has included the group on the list of foreign terrorist organizations since it kidnapped three US citizens in 2001 and killed two of them in captivity...

[Menning]

In the latest issue of the Atlantic Mark Bowden details the hunt for Abu Sabaya, leader of the group that kidnapped Martin and Gracia Burnham. It is an interesting piece of reporting. Bowden describes the cooperation between U.S. military/intelligence and Philipino Army/Marines that leads to the destruction of Sabaya's cell.

Here's the link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200703/bowden-jihad

[max161]

I did not realize Bowden wrote fiction!! But considering his source (singular not plural) I am not surprised.

[Menning]

I'm not sure I follow your comment about Mark Bowden writing fiction. Could you clarify?

[max161]

My comment about Bowden was meant tongue in cheek. However, much of what he attributes to Brig Gen Sabban is fiction. Arlyn Dela Cruz was a self serving reporter who wanted to be the story vice write about it. There are many, many inaccuracies, half truths, and spins of the facts in this article.

[Menning]

Is there another piece I could read about the incidents Bowden writes about that provides a better perspective? I have generally had a reasonably high opinion concerning Bowden. If he's not reporting a fair degree of the truth, I am disappointed. Thank you for the feedback.

[max161]

The fault lies not with Bowden but with his sources, primarily Sabban (look for the FEB 07 edition of Outside Magazine for some more "interesting" reading). If you want to read about what happened to the Burnham's read Gracia's book, In the Presence of Thine Enemies. Read Maria's Ressa's book Seeds of Terror - though more broadly about the SE Asia terrorist threat.

[sgmgrumpy]

The Philippines's military has been engaged in long-running offensive against the Abu Sayyaf, a group responsible for numerous killings in the south of the Philippines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wToFtiJnji0

You gotta love the red sweater with a Teddy Bear!

[JeffC]

From the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7146565.stm

Kudos to the Philippines Marines for the take down of this terrorist leader.

[Dayuhan]

On one hand, this story has been getting a fair bit of play in Manila:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/67043/j...iterror-expert

Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf now merged, says antiterror expert

The Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network and the local Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Sulu Archipelago are already so integrated they operate almost as one organization, according to an international counterterrorism expert.

The link between the JI and the ASG is “almost complete,” said Professor Rohan Gunarathna, head of the management staff of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore...

And for the other side:

http://www.philstar.com/nation/artic...ticleid=732196

Expert: No Abu Sayyaf, JI merger yet

A counter terrorism expert today denied the accuracy of a report that the notorious Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) have already merged in Mindanao.

In an interview with philstar.com, Rommel Banlaoi, chairman of the board and executive director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), said the two groups have not yet reached the level of unification.

““It is not accurate to say that there is a merger of the two groups as of this moment,” Banlaoi said, but cited that the two terror groups have been attempting to join their forces in the south...

I'll be curious to see if and how some of the experts I listen to (notably Zachary Abuza and Sidney Jones) weigh in on this one.

My own take is that neither ASG nor JI have sufficiently coherent leadership to "merge" in any meaningful way: both are more diverse collections of splinter groups than coherent organizations. For JI in particular, it's a bit over the top to refer to their "forces" in Mindanao.

Still, while the thought of a "merger" between ASG and JI may be a bit melodramatic, there are ASG splinter factions that are undoubtedly cooperating with the scattering of JI operatives who have taken refuge in Mindanao, and they could certainly make a mess. I don't see some new super organization emerging, but in many ways a small cell of core JI people and members of the fairly small Islamist faction within ASG would be a greater threat in the terror sphere than something larger and more visible. The bigger an organization is the more likely it is to be penetrated and compromised.

In the past, military pressure on the ASG has shut down the profitability of the criminal operations, greatly reducing manpower (most are in it for the money and have little if any concern for political agendas). Paradoxically, that has made the organization more dangerous even as its overt force and footprint are reduced, as the core members remaining are more inclined to ally with more political organizations (such as JI) and to make their presence felt by acts of terrorism.

[Bill Moore]

Both analysts make fair points, and in some regards it is largely a matter or perception, because Rohan may mean something different by merge than we may be thinking. It is indisputable that there are links between ASG and JI in the southern Philippines. They have been linked for years because they have mutual interests and goals. Also agree with the other analyst that ASG is splintered, so if a group or two of the ASG has merged with JI elements in Mindanao does that mean there is no light between the two organizations? Our does it simply mean that individuals and sub groups from each organization have collocated and cooperate? I suspect the relationship is dynamic and constantly evolving. One thing for certain, while both groups have taken a serious pounding, neither of them is out of business, and we shouldn't confuse our tactical victories with strategic victory. Even is JI and ASG as we knew them historically are finished, new groups composed of former members will emerge. We'll know we won when the enemy tells us we have won, right now they're continuing to adapt to the security environment, which is good news for us because it is hard for them to act now, but we haven't heard the last of them.

[Dayuhan]

I think the risk here lies in clinging to the idea that we're still dealing with coherent organizations with set goals and interests. I don't really think that's the case. Certainly there are individuals and small clusters with the incentive and capacity to make a mess, and that needs to be dealt with, but it requires a different emphasis than what an organizational focus would suggest.

ASG is a bit of an anomaly. The group has been most visible and drawn the most aggressive response when its political concerns and affiliation with international jihad have been at their lowest points: when the group was a high-profile bandit gang with a very nominal Islamist agenda. From a terror perspective, the group has been most dangerous when its criminal activities have been suppressed and the small Islamist core tries to track the remaining organization back to its jihadi roots. That happened in 2003/4, when Khadafy Janjalani was forced to run out to Cotabato. He ended up linking up with the Manila-based Rajah Solaiman Movement, composed largely of Filipinos who had converted to Islam while working in the Middle East, and the outcome was the 2004 Superferry bombing. That link looked to be a real problem for a while, but RSM was taken down, breaking the Manila link, and Janjalani was eventually killed as well. While there's currently no leader of KJ's visibility, it's certainly possible that someone with similar views might try a similar maneuver. It's entirely likely that a small cell composed of JI veterans and former ideological core members of the ASG might try for a high profile attack to put themselves back on the map and draw some resources, and a small cell would be in many ways more dangerous than a large organization.

I'm not at all sure that "we", as in the US, can "win", because it was never really our fight to begin with. All of the conditions to support insurgency still exist in the Tausug/Sama region. What will result from those conditions remains highly uncertain. It would be superficially logical for the MILF to expand its influence into what is now a leadership vacuum, but the Maguindanao/Maranao dominance in the MILF has always been an obstacle to that. An MNLF resurgence seems equally unlikely. Some jihadi groups might try to pick up the slack, but they will have to focus on the local concerns and the local agenda to gain much traction: the populace really isn't much concerned with the global jihadi agenda.

We'll see. Very hard at this point to say what will emerge, but it's not likely to be peace. Trying to analyze or understand the situation in an artificially imposed GWOT context is not going to produce any useful conclusion.

[Bill Moore]

Unfortunately our perceptions are shaped by GWOT (even though that title is no longer vogue), so instead of trying to understand the context we simply look to connect dots between individuals and AQ, and they're there. Those connections taken out of context as they are do give a very distorted picture. We could have closed shop after the Burhams were recovered, but the Philippines like other contingencies is another example of where we wait for the government to reform so we can leave, but perhaps by staying we are actually stalling that process. I have no idea how it will play out over the next few years (nor does anyone else).