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[av_heading heading=’The monster that refuses to die’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Friday, March 3, 2017
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THE DEFEAT of the Abu Sayyaf has been the objective of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) – and even the US since the Balikatan 2002. The US even offered cash rewards for information that could lead to the capture of Abu Sayyaf leaders.
It can be recalled that the then Arroyo government declared the defeat of the Abu Sayyaf so many times, especially after its leaders were killed by the AFP one after another in 2006 and 2007. In September 2006, Khadaffy Janjalani was killed in Jolo. In January 2007, Abu Sulaiman, Janjalani’s likely successor, was also killed. Other senior Abu Sayyaf leaders were captured and later killed in a prison siege in May 2005.
In June 2008, the military declared that the Abu Sayyaf numbered less than a hundred from a peak of 2,000 in the 1990s.
One begins to wonder, with the thousands of AFP troops deployed to defeat the Abu Sayyaf, how could the group persist? Past operations of the AFP against the Abu Sayyaf were reportedly supported by US Special Forces that, at the minimum, provided intelligence support.
How could the Abu Sayyaf survive the operations of the AFP? How could it continue to find replacements for its leaders who have been killed one after another?
How could it continue recruiting fighters when supposedly they have been constantly on the run? How could it still undertake major armed operations when it is supposedly headless and decimated, on the run and lacking in funds?
The worst case scenario is that the alleged collusion between the AFP and the Abu Sayyaf has been continuing. There were rumors in the past about some corrupt AFP officers getting a cut from ransom payments to the Abu Sayyaf while at the same time, the continuing presence and operations of the bandit group provided the justification for intensified military operations.
Another plausible explanation is that the AFP — and the US – created a monster that refuses to die. Abu Sayyaf’s first leader was Abdurajak Janjalani who fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. The US aided the Taliban resistance against the Soviet occupation and the Central Intelligence Agency was said to have supported the recruitment of radical Muslims from different countries. Janjalani was one of them. He later formed the Abu Sayyaf.
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