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Al Harakatul al Islamiya:
The Beginnings of Abu Sayyaf
By Fe B. Zamora, INQ7.net
Child hostage Ton-Ton Biel with Arlyn dela Cruz, in 1993
ABU SAYYAF, which means father of the sword in Arabic, first crossed the radio
airwaves over Basilan and Zamboanga as the call sign of Ustadz Abdurajack Janjalani, a
soft-spoken Islamic preacher whose exploits as a mujahideen in Afghanistan had gained
him the reverence of Muslim youth.
Not much is known why Abdurajack chose the symbolic Abu Sayyaf, which also means
bearer of the sword, as his personal call sign. Maybe he thought it best fit his
life's mission. Another clue points to Afghanistan.
Instead of going home to Basilan after finishing Islamic studies and military science
in Saudi Arabia and Libya, Abdurajack signed-up as a mujahideen in the 10-year jihad
in Afghanistan. It was most likely he was recruited to the guerilla unit of Prof.
Abdul Rasul Abu Sayyaf, who organized his group in 1986. Abdurajack arrived in the
hills of Afghan just about that time. The jihad ended in 1989 with the Russian
withdrawal from Afghanistan. A year later, Abu Sayyaf had become a byword in Basilan.
A charismatic figure, Janjalani believed in a "pure" form of Islam. This
fundamentalist view of Islam would soon take roots in Tabuk, a village in Isabela
where the Janjalanis lived. "The women wore black, the men white or grey. There were
no bright colors," according to an old-time Tabuk resident.
Arlyn de la Cruz, who was among the first journalists to enter Tabuk, remembers seeing
a Muslim community from an entirely different era. "No, it was not like the Muslim
community in Jolo or Zamboanga. It was really old world," she says. de la Cruz is
writing a book on her coverage of the Abu Sayyaf group from 1991 to 2001. This article
contains facts mostly lifted from her upcoming novel.
But the changes had actually been creeping the year past. Before Abdurajack had
returned from Afghanistan, another preacher, Ustadz Wahab Akbar, was patiently
teaching religion to young Basilenos and Arabic to their parents. "He encouraged us to
read the Quo'ran in Arabic," says the old-timer. "He was very patient with us."
Educated in Egypt, Akbar had envisioned a pure Islamic state in Basilan. His approach
was straight to the guts. He opened cooperative-type Islamic bakery which sold bread
cooked in special vegetable oil. The bakery became popular because it embodied
something that was pure Muslim.
In a way, Wahab planted the seed for the pure Islamic state which Abdurajack would
pursue.
Like many Muslim youth, Wahab was a member of the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF), the biggest, most popular Muslim group in the country that espoused a separate
Moro Republic in Mindanao in the early 70s. The secessionist war in the 70s had been
bloody, but the group had been moribund since 1976 when its leaders entered into a
political settlement with the Marcos government.
After signing the treaty, its founding chair Nur Misuari complained he had been
tricked, He stayed in Tripoli, refusing to come home to head the autonomous region. In
1986, however, with the ouster of the Marcos government, Misuari came home to talk
peace with President Aquino.
The move angered young MNLF cadres, like Wahab and Abdul Ashmad, a wiry and intense
intellectual who often engaged senior MNLF leaders in heated verbal tussles. The
generation gap in the MNLF widened. In 1990, Wahab, Ashmad and some 10 other MNLF
cadres severed ties with the MNLF to link up with a new group being founded by
Abdurajack. Together, they called it Al Harakatul al Islamiya or the Islamic Movement.
Together, they had about 20 members.
But for the public, it was simply Abu Sayyaf group.
Its goal was stated plainly: to establish an Islamic State in Mindanao.
The group had eight founding fathers, but its main attraction remained to be
Abdurajack. In his white flowing robe, Abdurajack was a vision of serenity. He was
like a human magnet, attracting young Muslim scholars newly returned from studies in
Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan and Egypt, and local Muslims disillusioned with
Misuari's change of heart.
The Abu Sayyaf's first set of officers was clearly younger, a new breed. Among them
were Abdul Ashmad, intelligence chief, and half-Tausug convert Edwin Angeles, who
sported the Muslim name Ibrahim Yakub, as operations chief. When Angeles quit in 1995,
he was replaced by Juvenal Bruno, a Muslim convert from Cagayan de Oro.
The first recorded atrocity committed by the group was the 1991 attack on a military
checkpoint in Sumagdang on the outskirts of Isabela. It was led by Wahab, who later
fled to Malaysia to become a businessman. He came back in the 90s to run for governor.
Abu Sayyaf "introduced" itself to the public mind with a big bang, literally. In 1992,
the group owned bomb attacks in Zamboanga City and Davao City. In the same year,
Angeles offered the public a view of the Abu Sayyaf's criminal bent. Disguised as a
policeman, Angeles abducted a businesswoman in Davao and hid her in the house of
Abdurajack in Basilan. She was released after paying a P1M ransom.
In April 1993, Angeles masterminded the kidnapping of Luis "Ton-Ton" Biel, five years
old, and his grandfather, owner of a bus company in Basilan. They released the older
Biel two days later, but held on to the little boy.
In his first presscon, Ashmad announced they were holding Ton-Ton until their demands
were met. These demands were: 1. Remove all Catholic symbols in Muslim communities; 2.
Ban all foreign fishing vessels in the Sulu and Basilan seas; and, 3. Bring the Ulama
into the negotiations.
Following the Biel kidnapping, the military swooped down on the Abu Sayyaf Camp
al-Madina in Mt. Kapayawan in the hinterlands of Basilan, forcing the Abus to leave.
Abdurajack went to Jolo with his followers, linking up with Radullan Sajirun, alias
Commander Putol, an MNLF fighter who lost an arm during an encounter, and other MNLF
members who were in limbo. Abdurajack renewed his campaign for a pure Islamic state in
Mindanao, a thought which appealed to a host of disillusioned MNLF fighters, among
them Galib Andang, alias Commander Robot; Gumbahali Jumdail, alias Doc Abu, a health
inspector who was also an MNLF commander, Nadzmi, alias Commander Global and Mujib
Susukan, a lean, pony-tailed fighter who comes from a family of MNLF warriors.
Susukan's father carved a legend as the first MNLF fighter who shot down an Air Force
plane.
Abdurajack also attracted his two younger brothers to his cause. Hector and the boyish
Khadaffy would train in Pakistan in the use of explosives. They also followed
Abdurajack to the hills.
De la Cruz, who followed the group to Jolo, notes that Sajirun and company were
actually mesmerized by Abdurajack. "They accepted Abdurajack's call to go back to pure
Islam. Even Robot stopped smoking," she says.
But that was only temporary, De la Cruz adds. Months later, Robot, who led a lost
command unit that specialized in rape and banditry, was again smoking.
But there seemed to be no problem. Abdurajack showed he was also a good politician. In
fact, his tendency to look the other way showed early on in his reign as Abu Sayyaf
leader. In 1993, Abdurajack had no qualms taking custody of Claretian priest Bernardo
Blanco, the parish priest of Lantawan, who was abducted by an MNLF Lost Command led by
Jul Jilang.
A year later, they scored their first American kidnap victim in the person of Charles
Walton, a language scholar who was doing research in Basilan. Walton was released
weeks later without ransom, thanks to the intercession of Ambassador Abdurazak Rajab
Azzarouq, the Libyan ambassador to the Philippines.
In January 1995, the Abu Sayyaf was linked to a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II
who was visiting Manila. Several suspected foreign terrorists, allegedly in cahoots
with the Abu Sayyaf, were rounded up in a wave of arrests in Metro Manila. The foreign
terrorists bolstered military suspicions that a bigger group was controlling the Abu
Sayyaf. Military reports traced the links to a low-key Muslim businessman named
Mustapha Jammal Khalifa, who is married to the sister of world terrorist Osama Bin
Laden. The military said Bin Laden funded the Abu Sayyaf through a foundation set up
by Khalifa.
It was quiet for a while. In April, Abdurajack's Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf, boosted by
MNLF fighters and a motley of MNLF lost commands, attacked the bustling town of Ipil,
robbing banks, shooting down people and setting the town on fire before fleeing with
several hostages, among them a lady engineer. The attack left 54 people dead and
hundreds wounded. The lady engineer never made it home. She now lives in Talipao as a
wife of one of his abductors.
>From the 20-something membership in 1990, the Abu Sayyaf had swelled nearly 600 in
>1995. Latest military reports estimates its membership at a high of 800.
The group is now the government's biggest enemy following its kidnappings of
foreigners in the Sipadan dive resort in Malaysia last year, and recently, of tourists
in the Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan. Military pursuit operations against the Abu
Sayyaf are continuing in Basilan island with American hostage Guillermo Sobero
believed to have been beheaded.
--
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