A SINGAPORE-based intelligence analyst said a dozen Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) terrorists from Indonesia and Malaysia are actively operating with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and are preparing for attacks in several areas in Mindanao, as well as in Metro Manila.
“[The] ASG is collaborating very closely with JI in Indonesia and these two groups almost merged, they co-exist, they work together, their leaders operate together as one organization. The integration of these two structures [is] almost complete and they are active at the Sulu archipelago.
“They work very closely with each other in the Sulu archipelago…. These two groups present continuing and significant threat…. There are still about a dozen Indonesian and Malaysian terrorists still operating in the Sulu archipelago. They are planning and preparing terrorist attacks…in Mindanao and Metro Manila,” Rohan Gunarathna, management staff head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism-Singapore, told reporters in an interview during the 8th Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Chiefs of Defense Forces Informal Meeting held at the Trader’s Hotel in Manila.
“Fortunately, the Armed Forces have been able to protect the Philippines by mounting sustained operations against both ASG and JI members. The terrorists want to disrupt social life…they want to create fear… they want to disrupt the political process,” Gunarathna added.
But Armed Forces’ Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (J-2) Maj. Gen. Francisco Cruz Jr. claimed there were only four JI militants in Sulu.
“We’ve identified four in Mindanao, particularly in Sulu,” Cruz said in a separate interview. He did not elaborate.
Gunarathna stressed that in the Philippines, the ASG has been maximizing the “technology and expertise transfer” from the JI which remains the biggest threat to security and stability in the Asean region.
“Most of the ASG’s capabilities in mounting bomb attacks came from JI,” he said, adding that the two key leaders of JI that worked with ASG were Omar Patek, who was arrested in Pakistan early this year, and Dulmatin, who was killed several years ago in Indonesia.
He explained that before their demise, Patek and Dulmatin returned to Indonesia because they suffered a lot from the sustained and intensified offensives of the Philippine’s military and police forces.
Cruz confirmed this and said over the past years JI personalities fled the Philippines because of the pressure of intelligence operations.
“Many of them fled the Philippines and returned to Indonesia and Malaysia because of the heat that they felt in Sulu and Basilan,” he said.
He also confirmed that the JI is responsible for the transfer of technology, expertise and training to the ASG.
“But because of the effort of the military they are on the run. Omar Patek left for Indonesia and then went to Pakistan,” Cruz said.
In the same interview, Gunarathna said the terrorist threat remains very significant in Southeast Asia as there have been “significant successors” of terrorists eliminated in the Philippines and in Indonesia.
“It is important for security and intelligence services, for law-enforcement agencies and for military organizations to continue to work together across borders, across countries, across communities to keep this region safe…. In the fight against terrorism, there are three very important components—first is intelligence, second is intelligence and third is intelligence. There’s nothing more important in fighting terrorism than generating real-time, high-quality, high-grade intelligence,” he stressed.
Gunarathna said it is also very important for the government of the United States to work closely with governments in Southeast Asia to keep terrorism under check.
“The US has helped Southeast Asia immensely and there’s excellent cooperation between the Philippines, the US, Indonesia, Australia, Europe and other countries in a symbiotic way. This cooperation has helped Southeast Asia to reduce the threat significantly,” Gunarathna said.
He lauded the counterterrorism efforts of the Philippine government for “significantly reducing” threats of terrorism, “because the Armed Forces and the National Police have generated high-quality and high-grade intelligence. Their human-intelligence capability is excellent. And as a result of the capacities and capabilities to produce intelligence, so many terrorist attacks have been prevented, so many important leaders have been protected, so much of infrastructure has been protected from terrorist attack because of good counterterrorism intelligence.”
In the past few days, government security forces engaged in several encounters Abu Sayyaf bandits in the Zamboanga peninsula, Sulu and Basilan that resulted in the killing of more than a dozen bandits.
To date, the military said the strength of the ASG had been reduced to less than 350 from a peak of more than 1,000 in early 2000s.
(With R. Acosta)
