Word: sayyaf
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Last week, Southeast Asia's war on terror, usually waged behind the scenes, burst into the open. In the Philippines, 22 alleged Muslim militants, including three top leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group, were killed during the bloody suppression of a prison riot. But offstage developments are just as frightening. TIME has learned that Philippine security forces seized a cache of sophisticated bombs during a mid-February raid on a safe house that police say was maintained by Abu Sayyaf in Manila. Twelve bombs manufactured from C4 plastic explosive were recovered, expertly hidden in items such as toothpaste tubes...
Terror, Visible Last week Southeast Asia's usually hidden war on terror burst into the open. In the Philippines 22 alleged Muslim militants, including three top leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group, were killed during the bloody suppression of a prison riot. But offstage developments are just as frightening. TIME has learned that Philippine security forces seized a cache of sophisticated bombs during a February raid on what police say was an Abu Sayyaf safe house in Manila. Twelve bombs manufactured from C4 plastic explosive were recovered, expertly hidden in items like toothpaste tubes and deodorant bottles. "We call them...
...Sayyaf, a terrorist organization in the Philippines, isn't shy about owning up to its dirty work. "We did it!" spokesman Abu Sulaiman crowed to a local radio station a few hours after a bomb on a ferry killed more than 100 passengers last February. At the time, Philippine officials scoffed at the claim because they didn't think the group had the ability to pull off such a deadly attack. (It wasn't until eight months later that the authorities acknowledged that Abu Sayyaf was indeed responsible.) Sulaiman didn't want to be taken so lightly last week...
...Philippines is going through a violent patch. Apart from the bombings, intense fighting has erupted in the mountainous south between the military and Abu Sayyaf rebels, who have joined with renegades of the Moro National Liberation Front (M.N.L.F.), a Muslim guerrilla group that once agitated for an independent state. Abu Sayyaf, moreover, has promised further attacks in urban areas. "We will find ways and means to inflict more harm," Sulaiman told the radio host...
...Before the bombing of the ferry, Abu Sayyaf was known as little more than a criminal gang that kidnapped people, particularly foreigners, for ransom. But under new leader Khadaffy Janjalani, a militant who learned his trade in the mid-1990s in camps in Afghanistan run by al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf has returned to its original goal: establishing an Islamic state through jihad. According to Philippine and regional intelligence sources, Janjalani is strengthening ties with not just M.N.L.F. rebels but also Jemaah Islamiah, the network of Islamic militants blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and which regional security officials...