Word: basilan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...group changed course, stopping its bomb attacks and kidnapping potentially rich foreigners for ransom money to fund operations and gain support from local communities. In 2000 the group kidnapped 21 people - 19 of whom were foreigners - in Malaysia, 50 students and teachers from two schools on the island of Basilan, and at least 15 foreign journalists, including one reporter who was kidnapped and released twice...
...improved dramatically, thanks in large part to the aid program, and local government is getting stronger. Sulu province "used to be the Wild West," he says. "Now the governor has banned all weapons and private militias and is instituting an islandwide ID-card system." Coultrup says four-fifths of Basilan Island, another hub of Islamist agitation, is also much safer. "The secret to counterinsurgency is if the people can answer yes to two questions,'' says U.S. Special Forces Major Eric Walker: "One, do people believe the government is going to win? Two, if they turn over information...
...Jolo is one of the Philippines' wildest places. Abu Sayyaf uses it as a refuge from the law; the group's traditional base is the island of Basilan to the north. The M.N.L.F. was actually born on Jolo in the late-1960s, from which it spread its call for an independent Muslim Mindanao. In the 1970s and '80s, at least 100,000 people were killed in that insurgency through much of the south. In 1996, M.N.L.F. leader Nur Misuari signed a peace deal with the government: Misuari became governor of most of the south and the group disarmed. (A splinter...
...said he aimed to return the fighters to the original goal of independence. Senior Philippine intelligence officials say they believe that as part of his reconsolidation of the group, Khadaffy and a core band of supporters have left the traditional Abu Sayyaf stomping grounds in the Sulu archipelago and Basilan and moved onto the main southern island of Mindanao, the vast home turf of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (M.I.L.F.), the much larger separatist group engaged in on-again, off-again peace talks with the Philippine government. (See story.) Arroyo is anxious to get a peace deal with the M.I.L.F...
...KILLED. HAMSIRAJI SALI, a leader of the extremist Islamic group Abu Sayyaf, and five fellow militants in a shootout with government troops; on the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines. In 2002 the U.S. indicted Sali in connection with the 2001 kidnapping of three Americans, two of whom died in captivity, and offered a $5 million reward for his capture. Sali's death marked the latest victory for the Philippine government in its recent crackdown on the extremist group. Earlier this month, police arrested six alleged Abu Sayyaf members and seized 50 kilograms of explosives, which authorities said were...