Word: murad
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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. to bring stability and development to Mindanao. M.I.L.F. chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim says a deal is needed quickly before younger Muslims in the region succumb to the greater radicalism of Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah, the regional network blamed for the Bali bombings that killed some 200 people, and which is widely believed to have maintained training camps in Mindanao since...
Sipping homegrown coffee in the shade of a huge acacia tree in a breezy jungle clearing, Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim wears a neatly pressed safari suit, his PDA and shiny leather briefcase close at hand. Murad, who is in his late 50s, resembles a thriving small-town businessman rather than a guerrilla leader. But there's no doubt about his authority over the 100 uniformed and heavily armed fighters who escorted the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (M.I.L.F.) chairman during an exclusive interview with TIME in Maguindanao province last week, his first since becoming the group's leader a year...
...Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wants the M.I.L.F. at ease permanently. She has spent the past three-and-a-half years trying to get a peace accord with the group, going so far as to persuade Washington to keep the M.I.L.F. off its list of terrorist organizations. Murad is now the man her government must deal with, and he says he's "hopeful but not too optimistic." He wants the government to adopt "a new formula" that will break the cycle of failed negotiations and mutual distrust between the two sides. A similar peace accord with the oldest Islamic separatist...
...M.I.L.F., according to Murad, is not allied with Abu Sayyaf, and he questions Abu Sayyaf's conversion to Islamic ideals and to the cause of a separate Muslim nation in the southern Philippines. "The original Abu Sayyaf group, under the older brother Abdurajak, had a political objective," he says. "As far as the personality of the younger brother Khadaffy is concerned, he's not an ideological leader and I don't know how much control he has with the organization...
...Murad firmly dismisses widespread allegations that his own group has collaborated with regional terrorist body Jemaah Islamiah (J.I.)?al-Qaeda's main offshoot in Southeast Asia?or allowed it to train in areas under M.I.L.F. control: "We have had no link with Jemaah Islamiah." But he admits that plenty of non-Philippine radicals have visited M.I.L.F. camps in the past?especially before Sept. 11, 2001?including Indonesian explosives expert Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who was killed a year ago in a shootout with government troops in the city of Cotabato. (Murad says al-Ghozi's J.I. connections weren't known...