November 2002, Bayani Magazine, US Forces In Philippines Facing CIA-Trained Abu Sayyaf Terrorists, by Michael A. Bengwayan, 

Basilan, Philippines (March 10, 2002) --- Unknown to most, the U.S. troops especially the Special Forces now in this Abu Sayyaf lair, are facing not merely a rag-tag band of bandits but hard core Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-trained fighters.

Most of the Abu Sayyaf leaders have fought Rambo-like in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980s after receiving training from the CIA, battling some of Russia¹s best fighting paratroopers, a reality the Philippine military seemed to have forgotten.

And they are now better and well armed, thanks to the millions of dollars of ransom collected from the so many hostages they have taken, some of which they brutally tortured, beheaded and killed.

According to former Philippine Senate Minority Leader Nene Pimentel, the Abu Sayyaf are remnants of about 800 Filipino Muslim Moujahideens who, together with thousands of other Muslim jihad warriors from several countries, were recruited, trained and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fight the CIA-sponsored proxy war in Afghanistan against the Russians in 1980.

Pimentel, a senator from this war-torn island of Mindanao, said that the terrorists¹ training as well as familiarity with the terrain in Mindanao, has made it very difficult for Philippine government troops to put an end to the Abu Sayyaf rampage.

Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, coming into grips with reality and putting pride aside, has turned to the United States for assistance resulting to the deployment of 650 U.S. troops, a part of which are from the Special Forces, otherwise known as the Green Berets. She earlier saber-rattled last year the fighting words "I will pulverize you, you are just one bullet, I will decimate you" in which the Abu Sayyaf responded in July 4 by beheading hostaged American missionary Guillermo Sobero.

Pimentel's disclosure is bolstered by the book of John K. Cooley titled "Unholy Wars". Cooley, in this book claimed "thousands of Muslim fighters from many parts of the world, including many young men from the Muslim-dominated but impoverished areas in Mindanao, enlisted to fight in Afghanistan with pay incentives ranging from $100 to $300 a month."

"The training of the moujahideens for guerilla warfare was undertaken by the CIA with the active collaboration of secret, usually, intelligence, services of the armed forces or select military officers in various countries, including our own," Cooley said.

"When the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the Moujahideens either returned to their home countries or proceeded to other countries and put their Afghan war military experience at the service of certain fundamentalist causes of Islam", the book revealed.

"This group (of Filipino Muslim Moujahideens) was the core of an armed guerilla band of several hundred men who moved from its Peshawar, Pakistan base to the southern Philippine Islands after the end of the Afghan war. Under the name of the Abu Sayyaf group, it operated on the fringe of the Moros Muslim insurgency," the Cooley's book added.

The Abu Sayyaf took its name from Professor Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan intellectual, who had preached an ultra-conservative Islamic ideology called Wahabi.

According to Pimentel, in the case of the Filipino Muslim moujahideens, most came back to various parts of Mindanao from their base in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Cooley calls the Abu Sayyaf in the 1990s as "the most violent and radical Islamist group in the Far East, using its CIA and ISI (Pakistan's intra-military directorate for intelligence services) training to harass, attack and murder Christian priests, wealthy non-Muslim plantation-owners and merchants and local government in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao."

Because the Abu Sayyaf was operating on the fringe of the Muslim insurgency in the country, its partisans were enticed by certain officers of the armed forces to serve as informers on the activities of the Muslim insurgents in Southern Mindanao.

Journalists Marites D. Vitug and Glenda M. Gloria named, at least, three military and police officers as coddlers or handlers of the Abu Sayyaf in their book," Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao." One was the commanding general of the Marines at that time, Brig. Gen. Guillermo Ruiz; the other two were police officers are, Chief Supt. Leandro Mendoza, now named Philippine National Police Chief by Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Chief Supt. Rodolfo Mendoza also of the police.

In the case of Ruiz's involvement with the Abu Sayyaf, Vitug and Gloria theorized that "The Marines led by then Brig. Gen.Guillermo Ruiz ­ apparently flirted with the Abu Sayyaf because they controlled the mountains and (he) wanted to keep his business." Next

The business of Gen. Ruiz reportedly had to do with illegal logging which led the Catholic Church of Basilan led by Bishop Romeo de la Cruz to demand that the Marines be pulled out of the island. As Vitug and Gloria put it, "By 1994, the Marines were out of Basilan." This episode has tarnished the otherwise unblemished record of the Marines, who had been held in high esteem by the people in troubled areas where they had been assigned.

Pimentel said that the Abu Sayyaf partisans were given military intelligence services IDs, safe-houses, safe-conduct passes, firearms, cell phones and various sorts of financial support.

He added that his informant, Edwin Angeles, former leader of the Abu Sayaff in Basilan who was summarily executed in 1999, said that it was the Abu Sayaff that raided and razed the town of Ipil, Zamboanga del Sur in early 1995.

"In that raid, Angeles told me that the Abu Sayyaf raiders were reportedly provided with military vehicles, mortars and assorted firearms. At that time, Angeles was "handled" by police officer, now chief superintendent, Rodolfo Mendoza", Pimentel; added.

Pimentel lamented the fact that a few but high ranking military and police officers of the government are in the training of the Abu Sayyaf partisans, the very same group of hooligans who are responsible for the kidnapping of foreigners and locals alike and the atrocities they had committed for several years now.

He said "Gen. Ruiz should be called to account for his involvement with the Abu Sayyaf. So should Chief Supt. Leandro Mendoza and Chief Supt. Rodolfo Mendoza."

"We probably cannot do anything about the CIA's responsibility in the creation of the Abu Sayyaf and the funding, training and equipping of its members by the agency. That is a thing of the past."

"But we can and ought to do something about the involvement of our military officers who were active participants or conduits of the CIA in the creation, funding, training and equipping of the Abu Sayyaf," Pimentel said.

He said he feared the filial connections of the Abu Sayyaf with certain officers of our armed forces have not yet been severed. The officers who have been identified as coddlers or handlers of the Abu Sayaff in various studies and documents must be called to account.

"It is only fitting that any Filipino who had a hand in the creation, training and equipping of the Abu Sayyaf should be held to account for high treason and other crimes," he said, "What's happening in the country, general?", President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was heard to have asked AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Diomedo Villanueva after being informed of the hostage taking of 20 tourists, three of whom are Americans, at Dos Palmas Resort here.

The question is one which every Filipino is asking of the President. It appears, the self-styled Muslim "rag-tag it may be in uniform but not in arms" bandit group has emerged from Medusa's head. And it may take time before it is finally killed not unless the government goes by the saying that "the only good Abu Sayyaf is a dead Abu Sayyaf"

Former President Joseph Estrada wanted a quick extermination of the terrorists. His military balked. Today, as events are unfolding, the military who hesitated against a sweeping and swift military operation are playing poker once again.

Arroyo's government is finding out too late that the military never wanted to get rid of the Abu Sayyaf. Rather, it "baby treated" the Muslim hostage-for-ransom armed group because it has always been its Frankenstein. But then, the military, is finding out too late that its creation has become a deadly and potent rebel force.

With an estimated US $5,750,000 ransom money earned last year, plus an additional US $5 million aid from world terrorist patron Osama bin Ladin, the once slipper-shod bandit gang has grown into a force of more than 1,000 men. This time, they are better-armed. They have started stockpiling weapons. Many of their recruits are remnants of the scattered Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters who lost several battles against the government and have more than an axe to grind against the same.

This time they are striking nearer to Manila, making a mockery of the Philippine military, a proud but the most corrupt, most under-equipped , most under-armed and most poorly prepared in military intelligence among all armed forces in South and East Asia.

"The military should have struck hard and quick when it had the chance last year. It did not. It wanted to prove its existence even when it was not needed. See what we have now, another dangerous rebel group," so said senator-aspirant Col. Gringo Honasan, a former military paratrooper and coup de e'tat leader. Last year, the Abu Sayyaf was estimated to be about only 200 armed gangmen.

"The Abu Sayyaf are plain bandits and criminals. They should be treated as such, no less", he stressed. The truth, however, is Abu Sayyaf is a creation of the Philippine military.

It is a Muslim terrorist Frankenstein nurtured by the military, which it now finds far beyond its control. Its criminal acts and banditry, one might say, is of military origin.

The abduction of 31 schoolchildren, murder of one priest, three teachers an d four pupils and hostage-taking of 21 foreigners last year are minuscule compared to the terror Abu Sayyaf waged throughout the island of Mindanao for the past seven years. Next

The conclusion comes from authors Marites Dangilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria, both journalists, who launched a book called , "The Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao".

The book's detailed revelations from military sources, former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leaders and Abu Sayyaf informers only reinforces public perception that the terrorist group could not operate the way it could without assistance from some high ranking officers of the government military.

The reason? 'The military used the Abu Sayyaf to the hilt, providing weapons and money, to counter the growing threat of the MNLF, (during the time when it did not yet enter into peace pact and government integration from 1992 - 1996).'

By doing so, the Abu Sayyaf was projected as a more capable and more determined group fighting for secession rather than Nur Misuari's MNLF. This forced the MNLF into the negotiating table with the (former) Fidel Ramos administration", the authors said.

But there is more to it. Fr. Cirilo Nacorda, a Catholic priest abducted by the Abu Sayyaf in 1995 said a retired high ranking politician and Brig. General Guillermo Ruiz, former Philippines Marines commander in Basilan province, provided guns, bullets and cash to the Abu Sayyaf to protect their multi-million dollar logging interest in the province.

One MNLF commander revealed that "the Abu Sayyaf had the protection of the Marines. They are provided high-powered guns, plenty of ammunition and 15,000 pesos to be recruited. Who else has this money except the military?, the MNLF commander said.

Damming Hadjirul, an MNLF leader is dead-sure the military reared the Abu Sayyaf . "When there's no war, there's no business for the military, right?" He bared some of his MNLF commanders were offered $US45 each to join the Abu Sayyaf by Abu Sayyaf men.

Even military analysts like Lt. Col. Ricardo Morales was puzzled when he wrote in an army journal in 1995, "How can a band of criminals with no military training to speak of, withstand the full might of the armed forces, slip through troop cordons and conduct kidnapping right under the very noses of government troops?"

Former Army Captain Rene Jarque, an intelligence officer shared Morales' consternation. "That this small group has managed to evade the military operations for too long in a tiny island lends credence to reports that some military units have been ordered not to touch the Abu Sayyaf."

It is no surprise then that the Abu Sayyaf who earlier kidnapped 24 children, one priest, and five teachers were able to slip through a cordon sprang by 3,000 military men in Mount Puno Mahadji.

Today, the Philippine government is faced with a terrorist problem it cannot handle because it has looked the other way when its military was coddling a growing extremist, fanatic and suicidal group.

The fate of the 20 hostages today is far from safe. The amount of money that can be paid and the government¹s actions or in-actions will spell out the results.

The Abu Sayyaf (Hand of God) was founded by Abdurajak Janjalani, a Libyan-trained former MNLF follower whose Islamic rhetoric fanned kidnapping of Christians, bombings of innocent civilians and torture of those who opposed the group. He mesmerized the Filipino Muslims with his command of the Koran, telling his followers to follow the pure Islam faith and even said Islam "allowed killing of our enemies and depriving them of their wealth."

Between 1991 to 1995, the Philippine military blamed the Abu Sayyaf for 102 terrorist acts. In that same period, the Abu Sayyaf was able to amass more than US$500,000 from kidnapped victims, many of whom it tortured and killed.

It bombed ships in Zamboanga city, raided towns and burned them like the municipality of Ipil, threw grenades into churches, movie houses, parks and markets; kidnapped nuns and priests and robbed banks.

For all its crimes, it cannot be ascertained as to how deep some military men are involved. Without such information, the lives of the present hostages may be more in danger now than anyone.

Authors Vitug and Gloria say "To suspect terrorism as a part-time business of postwar governments is nothing new. Scholars and crime and politics cite allegations about a three way tie-up between business, political parties and organized crime that has stretched into a fourth corner‹separatist and terrorist groups."

They acknowledge, however, that this premise has been difficult to pursue because events and tie-ups of this kind are seldom proven or admitted to by the protagonists themselves.Bayani © 2002, MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN