The defeat of the Abu Sayyaf has been the objective of joint military trainings and exercises, as well as combat operations by the AFP and US Special Forces since the Balikatan 2002. The US even offered cash rewards for information that could lead to the capture of Abu Sayyaf leaders. The Arroyo government has declared the defeat of the Abu Sayyaf so many times, especially after its leaders have been killed by the AFP one after another in 2006 and 2007. In September 2006, Khadaffy Janjalani was killed in Jolo by AFP troops. 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 namely, Kumander Robot, Kumander Kosovo, and Kumander Global. There were also reports that the three were summarily killed.
In June 2008, Zachary Abuza, professor of Political Science at Simmons College in Boston who specializes in Southeast Asian politics and security issues, wrote that the Abu Sayyaf lacked “any semblance of central leadership”. Also in June 2008, the military declared that the Abu Sayyaf numbered less than a hundred from a peak of 2,000 in the 1990s. The military also said the leader of the group that abducted broadcast journalist Ces Oreña Drilon and camera man Jimmy Encarnacion that same month was Albader Parad and Gafur Jumdail. Parad is the reported leader of the group that kidnapped the ICRC workers.
One begins to wonder, with the thousands of US-trained AFP troops deployed to defeat the Abu Sayyaf how could the group persist? AFP operations against Abu Sayyaf troops were also reportedly supported by US Special Forces, who, at the minimum, provide intelligence support. US troops, with its continuing presence in Mindanao, have also been engaged in civic-military operations as support to the AFP. There were even sightings of US military personnel in war rooms during AFP-Abu Sayyaf battles.
How could the Abu Sayyaf survive the joint operations of the AFP and the elite troops of the most powerful armed forces in the world, the US Armed Forces? 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. Some corrupt officers of the AFP may be getting a cut from ransom payments to the Abu Sayyaf while at the same time, the continuing presence and operations of the bandit group provide the justification for the intensified military operations being conducted by the AFP under the auspices of the US “war on terror”. (There were suspicions that an AFP general got a cut from the Lamitan loot thus, the Abu Sayyaf was allowed to escape.) The presence of the Abu Sayyaf also provides the justification for the continuing presence of US troops in Mindanao.
Another plausible explanation is that the AFP and the US created a monster that refuses to die: the Abu Sayyaf. The Taliban and the Al-Qaeda were supported by the US before.
However, one thing is certain: the AFP and US Armed Forces’ counter-terror strategy of fighting terror with terror is self-defeating. It has never worked with the major armed groups opposed to the Arroyo government such as the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It has not worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could not even defeat a small bandit group such as the Abu Sayyaf.
In the final analysis, the bigger question is not how the AFP and the US Armed Forces conduct its counter-terror, counterinsurgency operations, but for whom? (Bulatlat.com)
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