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

He was also among the defenders of Abu Sayyaf’s base camp, Al-Medina, in the ASG’s first major confrontation with the AFP.36 When marines assaulted the camp, in Kapayawan village outside Isabela, Basilan province on 3 May 1993, the fledgling group that had begun with just five rifles was able to muster 60 fighting men. It took the marines more than a week to subdue ASG resistance and seize the base.37

The battle of Al-Medina was a turning point in ASG’s evolution. Its loss drove Abdurajak Janjalani to seal an alliance with MNLF commanders on Jolo disgruntled by the resumption of peace talks with the government. Foremost among these was Radullan Sahiron, zone two commander in Patikul, who spurned Misuari’s entreaties to join the peace process in 1992 and pledged to “continue his sacrifices in the jungle”.38 He later married Abdurajak’s widow. Many other such marriages have taken place, knitting ASG tightly into the fabric of Sulu society and the MNLF.39

But Yasir Isagan also rose to prominence at a time when al-Qaeda influence in the Philippines was at its height,. In the early 1990s, he reportedly managed IIRO’s largest program in the country, Koran-reading classes for children (Halaqat ul-Koran), with 6,500 students and a multi-million dollar budget.40 Igasan’s long-standing ties to Saudi sponsors may recharge the flow of foreign funds, while his religious training provides the basis for wider local alliances.41

The ASG network continues to work closely with foreign jihadis. Its early partnership in 2001 was with JI, reportedly at the initiative of the then head of JI’s regional subdivision (wakalah) head in Jabal Quba, but it is the relationship with freelance jihadis that has assumed greater significance over the last three or four years after the wakalah structure was disrupted by arrests.

Umar Patek, Dulmatin and a few other other foreign jihadis from KOMPAK and Darul Islam accompanied ASG leaders when they were forced back to Jolo in September 2005; others, including Dulmatin’s brother-in-law and Malaysian JI member Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, stayed with MILF contacts in Maguindanao but were in regular communication by phone .42 The arrival of the ASG contingent in Jolo quickly reignited conflict there in November 2005, and a new wave of violence swept through Jolo town, the capital, from February 2006. On the same day a U.S. advance logistics team arrived on Jolo for the 2006 Balikatan ”exercises”, the local police intelligence chief was shot dead inside Camp Asturias, the provincial police headquarters. A week later, a bar outside Camp Bautista was bombed, killing at least three; a more powerful bomb wrecked a downtown store on 27 March, killing five.43 And in the six months before the military offensive known as Oplan Ultimatum began in August 2006, about 70 victims fell to motorcycle assassinations and kidnap-murders by the ASG’s “Urban Terrorist Group” (UTG), also in Jolo town.44

It is unclear whether the foreign jihadi presence has influenced ASG’s diversifying tactics.45 Umar Patek and Dulmatin were on the team that prepared the first Bali bombs and are believed to have imparted their skills in explosives to their ASG colleagues. They and Marwan have been in occasional communication by telephone and Internet with associates in Indonesia. But UTG’s kidnapping of Christians remains an established tactic, although recent victims have more often been wealthy townspeople than the villagers (and foreigners) typical in the past.46 Intended primarily to raise funds, these attacks also increase religious tensions and, if undertaken on a wider scale, might provoke renewed polarisation between Christians (mostly settlers from outside Jolo) and Muslims. Whether the ASG and foreign jihadis acquire the capacity to do this depends on their relationship with the MNLF and MILF.

AHJAG: A MECHANISM THAT WORKED
AHJAG, renewed in November 2007 but still moribund, offers a model for preventing such coalescence of terrorists and insurgents. On mainland Mindanao, it helped prise ASG and foreign jihadis away from the MILF, leading to their flight to Sulu.. A similar mechanism is needed there as the fugitives disappear into MNLF territory. Isolating a carefully defined terrorist enemy from insurgents is the only way to remove the threat without inflaming wider hostilities.

The problem of “lawlessness” in insurgent enclaves was first addressed in May 2002, when the Philippines government and MILF negotiating panels agreed to the “isolation and interdiction” of all criminal syndicates, kidnap-for-ransom groups and lost commands “suspected of hiding in MILF areas [and] communities”.47 The mechanism for this endeavour was an Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG), formally established only in January 2005.48