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Muslim rebels in the Philippines have scattered and become
leaderless after strikes using US intelligence tips, the
Philippines’ military chief said Thursday.
About a dozen leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, a group
blamed for the country’s worst terrorist attacks, were killed or
arrested in the past seven years after Manila allowed US Special
Forces troops to be deployed in southern Mindanao.
Though barred from combat, American advisers
have provided intelligence as well as training that helped local
troops make headway in counter-terrorist operations, said Gen.
Alexander Yano, the chief of staff.
“We have not really confirmed an acknowledged
leader [of the Abu Sayyaf],” he told the Foreign Correspondents
Association of the Philippines in Manila.
“Some leaders have emerged, but we cannot
confirm a single leader [from them] in the stature of [Abu Sayyaf
founder Abdurajak] Janjalani who could have welded together the
[group] into a united, formidable group,” Yano said.
Bandit arrested
His assertions came as a member of the al-Qaeda-linked
group was arrested in Sulu province in Mindanao also on Thursday.
Government troops are tracking down there Abu Sayyaf rebels who
recently kidnapped a television news crew and their guide in the
province. (See related story A7.)
Army Maj. Eugene Batara, a spokesman for the
Western Mindanao Command, said soldiers arrested Jul Akram Hadjail
near Sulu’s airport in Jolo, the provincial capital. He added that
Hadjail is facing criminal charges in various cases in Sulu and had
a P150,000 bounty for his capture.
The Abu Sayyaf, listed by the US State
Department as a foreign terrorist organization, has been blamed for
kidnappings of Western tourists and Christian missionaries as well
as deadly bombings of ferries, shopping malls and buses.
Yano said the terrorist group had become a
“loose organization,” and its remaining members, who he
estimated to number 360, scattered across the southern islands that
are heartland of a longstanding Muslim separatist insurgency.
“The leadership vacuum being experienced now
is one of the reasons why they [Abu Sayyaf rebels] have to generate
funds” through kidnappings, he added.
The kidnapped local television crew was freed in
Sulu earlier this month after at least P5 million (about $112,500)
in ransom was paid.
Yano said Filipino troops are conducting
“precise surgical moves by specially trained forces that can
strike when good intelligence comes in.”
Help from US
He described the role of the US forces in
Mindanao as “more of the technical and training.”
“They don’t participate in any combat
actions but they assist us in terms of training our forces,” Yano
said. “They assist us through some technical equipment, but the
actual operations are done by our own forces.”
The help of the US, which has paid bounties for
the arrest or killing of Abu Sayyaf leaders, had been significant,
the military’s chief of staff said.
“Most of the neutralization of the high-value
targets, the high-profile targets that we neutralized in the recent
past were effected with assistance from our counterparts [American
forces],” he added. “They are a big help.”
He confirmed that the Americans also helped
Filipino forces track the kidnappers of the ABS-CBN television team
during the nine-day hostage crisis.
Raps against MILF
During the foreign-correspondents forum, Yano
announced that the military will file charges against another Muslim
rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, for initiating
hostilities on Wednesday in Sarangani province, also in Mindanao.
The Armed Forces said a civilian military volunteer, a young girl
and a rebel were killed in the clashes.
He stressed the need for the military to
reconcile pushing with offensives against the liberation front and
guaranteeing the safety of rural folk who are threatened by armed
groups.
“We have to strike a very good balance between
holding our punches and of course trying to ensure that our plain
civilians, civilian communities, are not harmed. So doing this
[balancing act] on the ground may not be easy for commanders,”
Yano said.
The liberation front accused the military of
starting the clashes in Sarangani.
It said its fighters were forced to defend their
positions in Ticulab barangay (or village) in Maitum town, after
troops from the Army’s 27th Infantry Battalion, Special Action
Force and Regional Mobile Group attacked rebel positions in the
village.
Maj. Armand Rico, the spokesman for the Eastern
Mindanao Command, said the soldiers have to engage the rebels, who
had attacked a civilian community.
A ceasefire between the government and the
Muslim group is in place as the two sides await resumption of
stalled peace talks between them.
-- AFP With Maricel V. Cruz and Al Jacinto
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