Word: janjalani
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...Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, a former Filipino Islamic scholar who battled the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, founded the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf in 1991, splitting from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) - a more mainstream Islamic political organization fighting for increased autonomy for Muslims in the southern Philippines - after the MNLF engaged in peace talks with the government...
...after its leader, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, was killed in a gun battle with police in 1998, the militant 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...
...When Abdurajak's younger brother Khadaffy Janjalani took complete control of the group sometime around 2002, Abu Sayyaf renewed its ideological fervor for independence and refocused its efforts on bombmaking. In 2004 the group took responsibility for the most deadly terrorist attack in the history of the Philippines: the 2004 bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay that killed 116 people. By mid-2005, the Philippine government says Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist group responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, had trained some 60 members of Abu Sayyaf to make bigger, better explosives. Two Jemaah...
...Sayyaf appeared, however, to lose ground after the army launched a major offensive against the organization in August 2006. Shortly thereafter, Khadaffy Janjalani and two other high-ranking Abu Sayyaf leaders with important connections to funding in the Middle East were killed. According to one analyst, Abu Sayyaf is running low on funds, and no new leader has come forward to unite the disgruntled factions within the group. And once again, Abu Sayyaf is back to kidnapping for ransom money as a means of funding its operations. In January, the group held three Red Cross workers hostage, and analysts suspect...
...International Crisis Group. In the past two years, M.I.L.F. members have rescued several Filipinos and foreigners kidnapped by bandits, and the organization remains in uneasy peace mode. But some officials worry that Abu Sayyaf operatives could find sanctuary in parts of the southern islands that are under M.I.L.F. control. Janjalani, as well as some of his supporters, had been allowed to stay in a camp at the junction of four M.I.L.F. command zones. A high-ranking police officer who asked not to be named says he believes the M.I.L.F. is helping Abu Sayyaf in hopes that the unrest it stirs...