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Mohammed was a handsome 21-year old, a freshly minted
ustadz, when he was recruited into a small group of armed Islamists
that would carve its name in blood under the name Abu Sayyaf.
Mohammed (not his real name) was
among the first Abu Sayyaf guerrillas when Abdurajak Janjalani,
mesmerized with the exploits of the mujahideen in Afghanistan,
established the group in 1991. The following year, the Abu Sayyaf
kidnapped its first victim, a businesswoman, soon followed by
others.
Mohammed says that he’s had
misgivings from the start. He even asked Janjalani to first secure
the approval of Mohammad Jamal Khaliffa, Osama bin Laden’s
brother-in-law and the Abu Sayyaf’s primary benefactor, before he
joins.
Khaliffa, he says, wanted the
group to first Islamize Mindanao through education, not armed
struggle. He describes a somewhat benevolent caricature of Khaliffa
that those in law-enforcement might disagree with, but this is
material to be discussed in another time.
By 1993, Mohammed’s
disenchantment with Janjalani and the Abu Sayyaf was complete. A
Muslim scholar by training, Mohammed disagreed with the crimes he
describes as un-Islamic—the Abu Sayyaf had been committing. He was
particularly disenchanted with the influence an outsider, the
convert Edwin Angeles who turned out to be a government spy, wielded
on the group’s pursuits.
Mohammed told Janjalani that
Khaliffa wants him to return to teaching, packed his belongings and
went legal. He returned to Isabela City in Basilan and began the
teaching career he had been trained for.
Enforcing what he learned from an
extensive 18-month long Islamization course under Khaliffa’s
International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), Mohammed made the
ritual salah a requirement among students as well as wearing a hijab
for girls. And to avoid being recalled to the jungle, Mohammed
helped provide supplies to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas whenever they
ventured near where he was or whenever one came a-knocking on his
door.
He never shook off the tag Abu
Sayyaf, though, and by 2000 he had to flee to the mountains
following murders attributed to his followers. They are students he
taught in the IIRO fashion along the same ideological lines of Imam
Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Mohammed tried linking up with
Khaliffa anew in the hopes that they could get funding again. But by
that time Khaliffa was already in most anti-terror agency’s watch
so there was little he could do. And Khaliffa was supposedly
disappointed over what became of the Abu Sayyaf.
Mohammed was arrested in 2002 at
about the same time he was contemplating on leaving the group again.
He recalls that what he saw in
the mountains upon his return was a different, more untamed Abu
Sayyaf. It wasn’t that type of movement he saw himself in even as
a younger, more idealistic man looking for adventure and a legacy to
leave. Legacy is an elusive prize.
Men like Mohammed spend much of
their lives seeking it. For some, like Janjalani, they pay for it
with their lives.
Mohammed’s story provides much
insight to how bright, well-meaning individuals get sucked into the
web of terrorism.
At the same time it is
insufficient to explain how terrorists are made. They are made,
after all, never born.
Prof. Rommel Banlaoi of the
Philippine Institute of Political Violence and Terrorism Research,
in a 2006 paper, traces the roots of the Abu Sayyaf through
structural and agential analysis.
The first pins blame on
government’s inability to address the root cause of armed conflict
in Mindanao while the second focuses on the role of specific
individuals in making the Abu Sayyaf what it is now.
What is definite from
Mohammed’s story is that people we conveniently brand as
guerrillas or terrorists are people with a fully developed
personality. They know what they are getting into and, for reasons
unique to everyone, they go ahead and do it.
Some, like Mohammed, are able to
say enough. Others, not. I’d like to believe there are more men
like Mohammed than those in the other category.
mlatimes@gmail.com
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