Abu Sayyaf is Scared to Ilaga (Christian Militia Group)

Abu Sayyaf is Scared to Ilaga (Christian Militia Group)

Abu Sayyaf (About this sound pronunciation (help·info) AH-boo sah-YAHF;[needs IPA] Arabic: جماعة أبو سياف‎; Jamāʿah Abū Sayyāf, ASG, Filipino: Grupong Abu Sayyaf) also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya[5] is one of several militant Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern Philippines, in Bangsamoro (Jolo and Basilan), where for almost 30 years Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for an independent province in the country. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic ابو, abu (“father of”) and sayyaf (“swordsmith”[6]). The group calls itself “Al-Harakat Al-Islamiyya” or the “Islamic Movement”.

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion[7] in what they describe as their fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines.[8] Abu Sayyaf seeks the establishment of an Iranian-style Islamic theocracy in the southern Philippines.[9] Abu Sayyaf forces in Basilan and in Zamboanga Peninsula were, by June 2003, believed to number less than 500, down from more than 1,000 a year earlier. They use mostly grenades, bombs, machine guns, rifles, and rocket launchers.

The United States Department of State has classified the group as a terrorist group by adding it to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.[8] In 2002, fighting Abu Sayyaf became a mission of the American military’s Operation Enduring Freedom and part of the U.S. War on Terror.[10] The CIA has deployed paramilitary officers from their elite Special Activities Division to hunt down and kill or capture key terrorist leaders.[11][not in citation given] Several hundred United States soldiers are also stationed in the area to mainly train local forces in counter terror and counter guerrilla operations, but as a status of forces agreement and under Philippine law are not allowed to engage in direct combat.[11]

Abu Sayyaf is also involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping, rape, child sexual assault, drive-by shooting, extortion, and drug trafficking.[

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The Ilaga (Visayan: rat) is a Christian militia in the Philippines that operated during the 1970s in Southern Mindanao that fought against Moro Islamist[citation needed] militia.[1] Increased tensions in the Philippines since 2008 have since seen the reemergence of the armed vigilante group calling themselves the Bag-ong Ilaga (Visayan: New Ilaga).[2] Since 2008 violence flared up with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Armed Forces of the Philippines after the Supreme Court of the Philippines overruled the proposed treaty for an Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. [1] [3] The group committed its bloodiest act in June 1971 when it massacred 65 civilians in a mosque. [4]

Violence attributed to the Ilaga reached its bloodiest in June 1971 with the massacre of 65 old men, women and children inside a mosque at Barangay Manili in Carmen, North Cotabato.[citation needed] The group was composed of Settler villagers used by the Philippine Constabulary to attack Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) communities. Some members reportedly cut off the ears of dead Moro and wore them around their necks as trophies.[citation needed] One senior member, Norberto Manero, aka Kumander Bukay, also gained notoriety in the 1980s after he was convicted of murdering and eating the brain of Italian priest Tullio Favali whom he had suspected of having links with Communist insurgents.[citation needed] Santiago (spokesperson of the Reform Ilaga Movement), who is in his mid-60s, claimed that his group had at least 10,000 armed members and 10,000 more supporters.[citation needed] At the press conference, the Philippine Daily Inquirer saw some 300 armed men present.[citation needed] Some fighters had strange amulets, which, Santiago said, “came from their elders during the time of Kumander Toothpick.” The religious based amulets are believed to lose their powers when a person using it had done something bad.[citation needed] “Our instruction to them is not to go to battle if they have done something wrong against other people. To follow God’s commandments to avoid accidents that may lead to their deaths,” Santiago said.[citation needed

Abu Sayyaf is Scared to the New People’s Army (Communist NPA)

Abu Sayyaf is Scared to the New People’s Army (Communist NPA)

Abu Sayyaf (About this sound pronunciation (help·info) AH-boo sah-YAHF;[needs IPA] Arabic: جماعة أبو سياف‎; Jamāʿah Abū Sayyāf, ASG, Filipino: Grupong Abu Sayyaf) also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya[5] is one of several militant Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern Philippines, in Bangsamoro (Jolo and Basilan), where for almost 30 years Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for an independent province in the country. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic ابو, abu (“father of”) and sayyaf (“swordsmith”[6]). The group calls itself “Al-Harakat Al-Islamiyya” or the “Islamic Movement”.

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion[7] in what they describe as their fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines.[8] Abu Sayyaf seeks the establishment of an Iranian-style Islamic theocracy in the southern Philippines.[9] Abu Sayyaf forces in Basilan and in Zamboanga Peninsula were, by June 2003, believed to number less than 500, down from more than 1,000 a year earlier. They use mostly grenades, bombs, machine guns, rifles, and rocket launchers.

The United States Department of State has classified the group as a terrorist group by adding it to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.[8] In 2002, fighting Abu Sayyaf became a mission of the American military’s Operation Enduring Freedom and part of the U.S. War on Terror.[10] The CIA has deployed paramilitary officers from their elite Special Activities Division to hunt down and kill or capture key terrorist leaders.[11][not in citation given] Several hundred United States soldiers are also stationed in the area to mainly train local forces in counter terror and counter guerrilla operations, but as a status of forces agreement and under Philippine law are not allowed to engage in direct combat.[11]

Abu Sayyaf is also involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping, rape, child sexual assault, drive-by shooting, extortion, and drug trafficking.

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The New People’s Army (NPA) (Filipino: Bagong Hukbong Bayan) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of protracted ‘people’s war’.

The NPA collects from business owners in areas where it operates. This includes mining and logging operations – especially foreign owned enterprises that provides employment to the people with the belief that crippling the country’s economy would give favor for a revolution to occur. The Communist Party of the Philippines refers to the NPA as “the tax enforcement agency of the people’s revolutionary government.”[3]

The NPA is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department[1] and as a terrorist group by the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.[2] The Government of the Philippines, however, has delisted the NPA as a terrorist organization in 2011 [4] and has resumed preliminary peace talks pending formal negotiations with the NPA’s parent political organization, the CPP.[5] There have been reports of the Chinese government shipping arms to the NPA.[6]

Peace negotiations have recently reached an impasse. The Philippine government has specifically drafted a “new framework” which seeks to end the 27-year-long stalemate in the talks, hoping to build ground with the leftists rebels that is more comprehensive than human rights, the only issue on which the negotiating parties agree.[7]