The Philippines: Counter-Insurgency Vs. Counter-Terrorism in Mindanao

The Many Deaths of Dulmatin

Two weeks after the Ipil incident, the military announced, as it had several times before, that Dulmatin was dead. It said a source, Alfa Moha alias Bin, had led it to a grave in Lubbok, Panglima Sugala, Tawi-Tawi, where a battle between ASG and AFP forces had taken place on 31 January 2008. An AFP naval unit had been looking for the killers of Fr. Reynaldo Roda, a Catholic priest shot on Tabawan Island, Tawi-Tawi, on 15 January in what appears to have been a botched kidnapping. 99 Wahab Upao, an ASG member whom the military suspected of involvement in that murder, was killed in the 31 January attack, and Dulmatin was allegedly wounded.100

But while results of DNA tests on the body found in Tawi-Tawi have not yet been announced, doubts are growing that the body was Dulmatin’s – particularly after reports began to surface in Indonesia that the fugitive had made new contact with jihadis there. The question is why Philippine authorities apparently were wrong yet again. One explanation is money: eagerness to claim the cash reward may be leading to overly hasty pronouncements. Dulmatin has a $10 million bounty on his head from the U.S. “Rewards for Justice” program, which is credited with the downfall of some of ASG’s most wanted figures. But the program has led some military informants to equate amount of bounty with the importance of the individual concerned.

Dulmatin is now seen internationally as the top terrorist in the Philippines, in part because the reward for his capture is the highest. But Umar Patek, who only merits a $1 million reward, is in fact the top commander among the foreigners, with technical expertise at least equal to and probably greater than Dulmatin’s. A senior Philippine police officer was critical of the bounties in more general terms, suggesting they were leading to undue focus on individuals at the expense of more carefully thought-through strategies.101

On 19 February, the same day the alleged body of Dulmatin was recovered, the military announced the capture on the Mindanao mainland, in Davao Oriental, of an Indonesian JI member, Mohamed Baehaqi. He was in fact KOMPAK, not JI, and he reported to Patek. The fact that he was arrested not on Jolo, nor even in western Mindanao in the MILF heartland, but had moved through both to the other side of the island, suggests the complexity of jihadi alliances and the need to look beyond the big-name targets.

The Geographical Reach of Terrorism in Mindanao

Unlike Indonesia, where no serious bombings have occurred since 2005, jihadis continue their attacks in the Philippines. The geographic spread of those attacks is instructive, because it demonstrates that members of all three rebel factions are involved – and foreign jihadis may be providing a vital link among them. One week after the capture of Dulmatin’s wife in October 2006, coordinated explosions in three towns across central Mindanao (Makilala, Tacurong and Cotabato City) killed six and wounded 36. Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, the Malaysian national who has been in Mindanao since 2000, was almost certainly involved, together with an MILF commander, Abdul Basit Usman, and likely Dulmatin’s brother-in-law, Hari Kuncoro, as well.102 Exactly three months later, a second string of bombings struck General Santos City, Cotabato City and Kidapawan, killing another six bystanders; on 8 May 2007, eight more died in Tacurong. The same group may have been involved in these as well.

On 18 May 2007, 8 June, 15 June, 7 July, 18 July, 3 August, and 18 September, buses were bombed in Cotabato, Matalam, Bansalan, Koronadal and Tacurong, killing at least nineteen and injuring dozens.103 As noted above, these were said to be the work of Jabidi Abdul alias Bedz and the al-Khobar group.104 As with the degeneration thesis with regard to the ASG, however, distinctions between “political” and “criminal” violence can be exaggerated. The bus bombings are widely written off as an extortion racket unrelated to the conflict.105 Even if this proves the case, the diffusion of bombing technology into the criminal underworld is a destabilising consequence of jihadi activity in the Philippines.106 More generally, Indonesian jihadis have long used armed robberies of non-Muslims, called fa’i, as a religiously sanctioned way of raising money for jihad and have offered common criminals a way of atoning for past acts by using their skills in the service of war.