Saturday, April 21, 2007 Sayyafs behead seven hostages
MANILA - Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, largely written off as a crippled force after a US-backed offensive killed its top two leaders, tried to shatter that image with a signature act of terror.
An Abu Sayyaf faction led by a young commander, Albader Parad, beheaded seven men the group kidnapped days ago and had their heads delivered by civilians to the doors of two army detachments on volatile southern Jolo island Thursday, the military said.
The gruesome beheadings of six road project workers and a dried-fish factory worker served as a reality check.
Saber-rattling
Jolo Gov. Ben Loong suspended many road repair and other public works projects and went on radio yesterday to calm jittery Jolo residents. There was a new round of government saber-rattling.
“Abu Sayyaf’s acts of terror will not go unpunished. Our troops are committed to the singular objective of obliteration,” President Arroyo said.
Outside a Jolo hospital morgue where the decapitated heads and bodies were brought, laborers gingerly hammered together wooden coffins as some villagers watched. The remains of the workers, all Christians, were to be shipped to their residences in nearby Zamboanga City, Loong said.
The Philippine Army, outraged by the beheadings, ordered its men to intensify efforts to wipe out the “barbaric” militants.
Assurance
TV pictures showed the barefoot bodies, their hands tied behind their backs, loaded on a pickup truck and covered with banana leaves.
“The government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines are here. The government will take care of you, no matter how long this trouble will last,” Loong said.
While the grisly act appears to be aimed at avenging the death of an Abu Sayyaf commander in a clash with troops and nonpayment of a ransom demand, it also was an attempt to drive a stake in the heart of high-profile US and Philippine efforts to portray Jolo as a land rapidly emerging from decades of lawlessness and violence.
Washington has made huge investments on Jolo, about 960 kilometers south of Manila, with civic projects meant to win hearts and minds on an island that still recalls the massacre by US occupation forces of hundreds of Tausug natives in a pacification campaign nearly a century ago.
Ultimatum
Forbidden from joining local combat by the Philippine Constitution, the US military has deployed troops to train and arm the underfunded Philippine military and often flies its P3 Orion spy planes to help track insurgents hiding in Jolo’s vast tropical jungles.
The combination, along with a massive Philippine military offensive called “Oplan Ultimatum,” delivered lethal blows to the Abu Sayyaf.
Last September, US-trained Filipino troops fatally wounded Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and later shot to death presumed successor Abu Sulaiman—shattering the image of invincibility of the militants, who had survived countless US-backed assaults in the last few years.
Janjalani’s death closed an era of militancy from his locally prominent family. A brother founded the Abu Sayyaf in the late 1980s before he was killed. Another sibling, also an Abu Sayyaf member, is in prison after being convicted of helping kidnap an American.
Battle setbacks drove more than 300 Abu Sayyaf remnants, split in at least six factions, along with a few Indonesian terror suspects deeper into the jungle and provided a months-long respite from violence in Jolo’s townships.
New war
US troops rushed road and school repairs. Open-air cafes opened even at night in Jolo town, where just a few years ago all stores shut in late afternoon for fear of violence. The upbeat military declared the Abu Sayyaf’s days were numbered.
Recent confidential government assessment reports seen by The Associated Press paint an Abu Sayyaf in disarray, hobbled by financial and logistical problems. But the reports all agree that the militants can still inflict harm.
A new war in Jolo between troops and another Muslim rebel group led by Moro National Liberation Front commander Habier Malik could be a crucial shot in the arm for the embattled Abu Sayyaf.
Malik could create a tactical alliance with the Abu Sayyaf, military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said.
Wipe out
Ric Blancaflor, a Philippine counterterrorism official, said the Abu Sayyaf, unlike conventional combatants, aims to foster terror—an easy objective even for a group struggling with limited men and weapons and crippled by battle losses.
“Even in their death bed, they will move to re-establish an image of strength and power,” Blancaflor said. “Even with their last bullet, they will try to attempt something.”
“Until you get the last of all the cells, you can’t say that the threat is over.” (AP)
