02/20/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09717

FIGHTING ABU SAYYAF TERRORISM

Earlier this month, Philippine troops launched an attack on Abu Sayyaf terrorists on Jolo island, more than nine hundred kilometers south of Manila. Ten terrorists were reported killed.

Abu Sayyaf is the most radical of the Islamic separatist groups operating in the southern Philippines. It engages in bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion. Its goal is to create an Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago areas in the southern Philippines.

The founder of Abu Sayyaf, Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani [ahb-dure-RAH-jeek ah-boo-bah-kahr JAHN-jah-lah-nee] was killed in a shoot-out with Philippine police in 1998. Command of the group was taken by his younger brother Khadaffy Janjahlani [HAH-dah-fee JAHN-jah-lah-nee].

Abdurahjik Janjahlani is reported to have studied in Saudi Arabia and Libya. In the early 1990s, Abu Sayyaf members were visited by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, an al-Qaida operative.

Abu Sayyaf likes to attack foreign tourists and Philippine civilians, including women and children. Abu Sayyaf attacks are marked by extreme violence and cruelty. Their victims are often beheaded. One was a U.S. citizen, Guillermo Sobero. In April 1995, Abu Sayyaf thugs pillaged and burned the predominately Roman Catholic village of Ipil. Fifty-three civilians were murdered, forty-four were wounded, and thirteen others were taken hostage.

Despite such barbarism, the terrorists have failed spectacularly in their main goal: to intimidate the people of the Philippines. And as Admiral Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said, "the hostage taking has been reduced by the pressure of the armed forces of the Philippines." Admiral Blair warned that "there still remains a group of Abu Sayyaf rebels on the loose in Basilian and it is a case of rooting them out."

The U.S. has sent American forces to train Philippine troops and help improve their capabilities to counter terrorism. The U.S. will also provide communications support, intelligence, and equipment. The U.S. welcomes Philippine efforts to stop global terrorism.