Abu Sayyaf in Basilan: A deadly redux

But, according to experts, the Basilan experiment was half-baked because the campaign moved, in 2003, to the adjacent province of Sulu. The Sulu campaign has much more support from Washington, which maintains an undetermined number of troops on Sulu, where the Abu Sayyaf is likewise believed to be present.

Earlier this month, the Philippine military suffered its highest casualties in recent years during separate battles with suspected Abu Sayyaf members on Jolo island, the capital of Sulu. Twenty-seven soldiers were killed in these clashes. The army said it had killed more than 30 Abu Sayyaf members in these incidents but only seven bodies were recovered. The army also claimed that it killed between 30 and 40 insurgents in Saturday’s encounters but only four bodies were found.

In the past month, the government increased the number of troops on Basilan and Sulu to more than 12,000, the biggest such deployment since 2001. “The firefight is ongoing,” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said in a press briefing on Saturday. “Our troops are now concentrating in the area. We will press on with the fight.”

The continued presence of the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan and the mayhem that the group still spreads could prove embarrassing both for Manila and Washington, according to Abhoud Syed Lingga, executive director of the Institute for Bangsamoro Studies, a non-profit group that does research and studies on issues concerning Filipino Muslims.

“Exactly what benchmark the government used in determining success in its operations against the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan?” Lingga said in an interview. “If the measure is the Abu Sayyaf’s absence, they can come back after the military operations were over,” he said.

“Even determining their absence is problematic,” Lingga added. “Do authorities know the identities of all Abu Sayyaf members? If they do not, how can the military say that there is no more Abu Sayyaf in Basilan?”

Basilan’s congressman and former governor Wahab Akbar said earlier this month that 80 percent of Muslims in Basilan support the Abu Sayyaf, although Lingga said a more accurate way to put it is that “80 percent tolerate the presence of the Abu Sayyaf” on an island that had been wracked by lawlessness and saddled by poverty and weak government presence. Akbar also pointed out that that some people on the island may have been using the Abu Sayyaf’s name to commit crime.

And in what could be a sign that the Abu Sayyaf threat in Basilan is increasing, provincial officials announced this month that they would include women in their recruitment for a military-backed militia group to fight the Abu Sayyaf better.