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Abu Sayyaf	Abu Sayyaf	Takfir wal Hijra	Middle East				20031025
	Abu Sayyaf	al-Tawhid	Middle East				20030927

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Four members of anti-Israel Dagestan airport mob sentenced to decade in penal colony

2025-01-12

They’re keeping an eye on events from Israel.

[IsraelTimes] Punishment said to be harshest yet in connection to riot at Makhachkala Int’l Airport after the arrival of a plane carrying ‘unclean’ passengers from Tel Aviv, 3 weeks after Oct. 7

Russian prosecutors announced Friday that four people had been sentenced to a decade each in a penal colony for their part in an antisemitic riot at a Dagestan
...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca...
airport on October 29, 2023.

Hebrew media said it was the harshest sentence yet in connection with the attack, which saw hundreds of anti-Israel protesters storm the Makhachkala International Airport after a plane arrived from Tel Aviv, in a spate of unrest over the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, which had been sparked three weeks earlier when Hamas
Hamas

..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
attacked Israel.

Russian prosecutors said the three people who incited the violence on Instagram were still wanted by authorities.

Video footage from the riot showed the protesters, mostly young men, waving Paleostinian flags, breaking down glass doors and running through the airport shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest). The airport closed for a week after being stormed, but no passengers were hurt.

Regional prosecutors in Russia’s southwestern district of Stavropol said on Telegram that the region’s Georgievsk City Court had found Marat Rabadanov, Radzhab Radzhabov, Magomed Ramazanov and Zaurbeg Khalikov culpable in the violence "on the grounds of ethnic and religious hatred and enmity toward citizens of Israel."

The Kan public broadcaster said the sentence was the fourth, and the harshest, punishment meted out by the Stavropol court against members of the Dagestani mob in recent months.

The earliest convictions, in June, saw five men incarcerated
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
for six to nine years each. Last month, another 10 people were sentenced to over eight years in prison, according to Russian media.

Kan said the trials have been moved from Dagestan to neighboring Stavropol due to concern that a Dagestani court would not hold a fair trial.

It was unclear if this meant that courts in Dagestan, a predominantly Moslem region, were thought to be overly or insufficiently stringent.

According to the Stavropol prosecutors, the Dagestani mob had disrupted the Makhachkala airport’s operations, caused 24 million rubles ($233,000) worth of property damage, and committed "unlawful acts against 30 representatives of the authorities," 23 of whom "suffered bodily injuries of varying severity."

The mob was incited by a Telegram channel urging Dagestanis "to organize and participate in mass riots" against Israeli citizens, according to a statement by Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top prosecutorial body which is known by its Russian initials SRK.

The channel, which was later banned by Telegram, did not use the word "Jew," but referred to "unclean" passengers arriving on the plane from Tel Aviv.

SRK said the channel’s operators, whom the agency named as Ilya Ponomarev, Abakar Abakarov and Israil Akhmednabiyev, were still wanted by authorities, along with four other people who took part in the mob.

In all, SRK said it had completed preliminary investigations into 135 people involved in the attack and forwarded 28 criminal cases to the court. A total of 38 people have been found guilty in seven of the cases, the agency said.

Dagestan’s small, ancient Jewish community — known as Juhuri, which is also the name of their Hebrew- and Aramaic-inflected dialect — has been targeted by Islamist gunnies for years before October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led gunnies stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza and precipitating a worldwide surge in antisemitism.

In June, the community’s 110-year-old Derbent Synagogue was burnt down amid a large-scale Islamist attack on non-Moslems in the area.

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Southeast Asia

Too good to be true? Unpacking Jemaah Islamiyah’s self-declared disbanding

2024-09-08

2024.07.10
[BenarNews] At an event organized last month by the Indonesian counter-terrorism agency (BNPT), Abu Rusydan and 15 other leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah announced their group’s dissolution.

JI, the Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda, had carried out a string of devastating attacks in the 2000s, including Indonesia’s deadliest-ever terror attack — the 2002 Bali bombings. But now it was "ready to actively contribute to Indonesia’s progress and dignity," Abu Rusydan declared as he read from a prepared statement during the event on June 30.

This is not the first time that a bully boy group has disbanded itself. The Provisional Irish Republican Army unilaterally broke up in 2005, throwing itself solely into legal activities through its political arm, Sinn Féin. In 2018, the Basque separatist organization ETA also unilaterally disbanded.

But Jemaah Islamiyah’s announcement surprised many people, and left others feeling skeptical.

There are three interrelated questions that need to be asked about the move by JI: How did we get here? Is this for real? And what does this mean for regional security?

HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Jemaah Islamiyah, which has its roots in the Darul Islam movement, was founded in Malaysia in 1993, when its two founders, Abdullah Sungkar and

Abu Bakar Bashir
... Leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council and proprietor of the al-Mukmin madrassah in Ngruki. The spriritual head of Jemaah Islamiya, which he denies exists. Bashir was jugged and then released in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, which he blamed on a conspiracy among the U.S., Israel, and Australia. In 2014, as leader of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), he pledged allegiance to ISIS. Currently in jug...
, were on the run from Suharto’s New Order government in Indonesia.

While in Malaysia, they served as a way-station for several hundred gunnies who traveled to Pakistain to join the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, putting them in direct contact with al-Qaeda.

In 1996, a charter (the PUPJI) created the group’s organizational structure and codified JI’s Salafi ideology. At the time, the group also reached an agreement with the Philippine armed separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to allow al-Qaeda to establish training camps in the southern Philippines.

In Indonesia, JI perpetrated terrorist attacks on Christian churches and established two paramilitary organizations to wage sectarian conflict in the Maluku Islands and Central Sulawesi province.

Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the al-Qaeda leadership called for diversionary attacks. One of these was the twin Bali bombings that killed 202 people a year later.

Between 2002 and 2007, JI perpetrated a major attack almost every year. But each attack left the organization weaker as counterterrorism forces became more adept and better resourced.

This led to an ideological split in the organization between proponents of the line of targeting the "far enemy," versus those who wanted to foment sectarian conflict in order to rebuild their depleted ranks.

The government legally banned JI in 2008, but allowed it to operate as an entity as long as it refrained from violence.

In 2010, more than 100 JI members were swept up, including Abu Bakar Bashir, breaking the organization’s back. JI’s last terrorist act took place that year.

Yet, from 2020-2023, Indonesian counter-terrorism efforts were as focused on JI as it was on the pro-Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
umbrella group, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD). Security forces originally saw JI as an off-ramp for the more radical JAD, but attitudes hardened.

In 2019, when counterterrorism police arrested JI’s emir, Para Wijayanto, they were shocked by the group’s size and national reach. Its madrassas and charitable arms had grown, while its corporations and publishing arms had created a steady revenue stream. As many JI members were arrested in 2021 and 2022 as JAD suspects.

Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have applied a softer approach. Though seemingly campy, they’ve held mass rallies where former gunnies pledge allegiance to the republic.

Former gunnies have established madrassas for the children of incarcerated bully boys, so they are not raised in JI or JAD-run schools, breaking terrorist social networks.

They’ve gotten leaders, including the JAD Emir Aman Abdurrahman, who is on death row, and Umar Patek, to publicly renounce violence.

Meanwhile the conflict in Poso, which served as a rallying point for all bully boy groups in Indonesia, has been stamped out.

Internationally, there has been more cooperation amongst the regional security services. And while ungoverned space and institutional weakness remains in the southern Philippines, bully boy groups are no longer attracting JI and other foreign bully boys.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front continues to implement the grinding of the peace processor and build up institutions that will help the autonomous Moslem region transition to self-governance. There has been an unprecedented sustained attack on the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
, which is now fighting for survival.

IS THIS FOR REAL?
While JI has not been in a position to engage in terrorism, until now, it has never renounced violence. Many in the organization were simply waiting for the right circumstance to resume operations.

It’s easy to be cynical about the group’s prepared statement, especially at an event stage-managed by the BNPT. Some of those who were on hand had been arrested and gone through government disengagement programs.

To young radicals, they’re sell-outs, and past their prime. The average age of the men who renounced violence was in the late 50s or older.

To what degree will younger members follow the leadership and pursue a legal-political alternative?

In many ways, this is more promising. JI’s campaign of militancy failed to bring about the establishment of an Islamic State governed by Sharia. Democratic politics have advanced their political agenda more effectively.

It’s not that Islamist parties do terribly well at the national level. Indeed, in Indonesia’s 2024 general election, they collectively represented about 20% of the electorate and won 101 of 580 seats. But they are important members of political coalitions, which tend to give them a disproportionate voice.

It’s at the local level where we see faith-based parties make their mark, especially in the passage of public policy and Sharia compliant codes, which the majority of provinces and districts now have.

Islamist parties are riddled with rivalries and have never formed a cohesive bloc.

Perhaps for that reason, JI saw an opening for a tactical shift. In May 2021, JI established the Indonesian People’s Dakwah Party (PDRI). Yet, counter-terrorism forces arrested its founder, Farid Ahmad Okbah, that November for being a senior member of JI. Two others were arrested.

The PDRI did not contest the 2024 elections. But it seems likely that with JI’s dissolution, the government will give former members more political space.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR REGIONAL SECURITY?
JI’s manpower and locus were largely-Indonesian based, but it remains a Southeast Asian organization.

Some affiliates gravitated elsewhere. Darul Islam Sabah, for example, went from facilitating JI and the movement of foreign gunnies in and out of the southern Philippines to working with the JAD and other groups.

There has always been more fluidity between Southeast Asian bully boy groups than those in the Middle East or South Asia. Abu Bakar Bashir defected from being pro-al Qaeda to being pro-Islamic State, with large numbers of acolytes, without consequence.

As such, many younger gunnies who are committed to using violence to achieve their political aims are likely to defect to other groups.

What those groups may be, though, is unclear. The JAD is decimated and leaderless, though to be fair, it was always far more horizontally structured. It has not executed a major terrorist attack since 2019.

At present there is no apparent charismatic leader for bully boy Salafists
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
to coalesce around. And while one would expect external events, such as the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, to serve as a catalyst, to date it has not.

JI still runs a network of madrassas, including some very large ones like al-Mukmin and Pesantren Hidayatullah in Balikpapan. These continue to be ideological incubators and hate factories.

It’s hard to see state educational personnel intervene and change their curriculum. But Indonesian security forces have not let up, despite the decline in organizational strength or the tempo of operations.

Terrorism will be a persistent but manageable threat in Indonesia. JI’s dissolution makes it more so, providing a legal-political alternative that is more moral, but also proven to be more effective.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or BenarNews.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine govt soldiers kill 8 suspected Islamic State-linked militants in Mindanao firefight

2024-01-28

[BenarNews] Eight suspected Filipino snuffies belonging to a local group allied with Islamic State

That would be the attack on Mindanao State University.

According to military officials, the Filipino snuffies were apparently acting under the instructions of the Islamic State, which had earlier owned up to the attack.

"During the military operations the troops killed eight enemies," Brig. Gen. Yegor Rey Baroquillo Jr., commander of the 103rd, told BenarNews. After the firefight, troops retrieved the bodies of the slain bad boys, he said.

Baroquillo said four members of the Scout Rangers, who were maimed in the fighting, were brought to a local hospital. He did not divulge the extent of their wounds.

He said the troops were after the Marawi bombers and that search operations were focused on three Lanao towns believed to be strongholds of the DI-Maute: Pantao Ragat, Poona PIagapo and Munai.

Brig. Gen. Anthon Abrina, commander of the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, told BenarNews in a phone interview that "we are on heightened, red alert status following the encounter Thursday evening."

Troop reinforcements have been brought in and several checkpoints were established along the national highway leading to the areas "to ensure the safety of civilians in their respective communities," Abrina said.

The towns in Lanao are near the city of Marawi, where the bombing took place.

Military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. has blamed the DI-Maute group for the bombing, saying it was carried out as Dire Revenge for a military operation elsewhere in the south that left over a dozen snuffies killed.

Two of those killed were identified as Mundi Sawadjaan and Jalandoni Lucsadato. Sawadjaan has been identified as a sub-leader of the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
, another Islamic State-linked group in the southern Philippines.

He was also the nephew of the late Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who was thought to be the group’s leader before he was killed in 2020. The elder Sawadjaan at one time was also named as the IS leader for the Philippines.

Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan also criminal masterminded a January 2019 bombing at a Catholic church on southern Jolo island that killed 23 people including an Indonesian couple blamed for the suicide kaboom, according to Philippine authorities.

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Southeast Asia

Governor claims Sulu has eliminated Abu Sayyaf Group but observers urge caution

2023-09-13

[BenarNews] The governor of Sulu has declared it to be free of Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
holy warriors, but analysts warn that the group’s top leaders remain on the lam while private armies hired by politicians strike fear among people in the southern Philippine province.

Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan, who chairs a task force of military and local government officials, last week announced that the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) had been wiped out in Sulu, a chain of islands in the far south near the Malaysian part of Borneo.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine military blames ex-separatist rebels for deadly southern ambush

2023-08-16

Splitters!

[BenarNews] The Philippine military on Monday accused members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former guerrilla group, of killing a soldier and a policeman during an attack in the south that left seven government troops maimed.

In Sunday’s incident in Ungkaya Pukan, a remote town in the island province of Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
, officials said that 10 button men ambushed a security convoy guarding a Joint Peace and Security Team. The team is tasked with overseeing the decommissioning and disarming of former MILF combatants as agreed in a 2014 peace agreement with Manila.

The team members were riding in two vehicles after inspecting the area — a former MILF stronghold — when they were attacked, said Maj. Andrew Linao, a regional military front man.

"Our troops fought back, resulting in a firefight which lasted for five minutes," Linao said.

He said the soldier went titzup, while the policeman died later while being treated for his injuries. The seven other maimed soldiers were recuperating at a military hospital in Zamboanga City.

"This act is a clear manifestation of the perpetrators’ disrespect to their local government officials, the military, and their fellow Basileños, hence, we will not stop until these heartless individuals are identified and neutralized," Linao said.

BenarNews contacted local MILF authorities but did not immediately hear back.

Brig. Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of 101st Brigade and Joint Task Force Basilan (JTFB), said the MILF leadership "appears to have no control over its members," although he added that they had denied their members were involved in the ambush.

"Right now, the pressure is on the MILF side to show their sincerity," Luzon told news hounds.

The former separatist group’s leadership said they had no control over people not identified as their members, according to Luzon.

"But the MILF leadership promised to look and identify those perpetrators," Luzon said.

He said pursuit operations were continuing on Monday against the suspects.

The 12,000-strong MILF was once the country’s largest murderous Moslem force until it dropped its bid for independence and settled for expanded autonomy under the 2014 peace deal.

Demobilization started in 2019, and was to be taken in three stages. At each stage, those demobbed were to get U.S. $2,400 per weapon, including funds for education. Stage 1 covered 145 gunnies and 75 weapons, stage 2 covered 12,000 gunnies and 2,000 weapons. Stage 3, which started this month, is to cover 12,699 gunnies and 2,450 weapons. It’s odd that the Philippine defense department estimated 40,000 firearm in MILF hands.

The separatists then became caretakers of a Moslem region although they agreed to turn over their weapons, while some of the ex-guerrillas were absorbed into the local police force.

As long as the Philippine government surrendered the territory to the Ummah, that’s all that should matter. Except to those who refuse to give up the pleasures of the hard jihad of the sword even after they’ve won.

In November, around 100 suspected MILF members attacked a military outpost in the same village as the weekend ambush, according to the military. Officials did not immediately say if the two incidents were related.

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Southeast Asia

Thousands flee standoff between govt forces and ex-guerrillas in southern Philippines

2023-06-27

[BenarNews] Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in the southern Philippines’ Sulu islands amid a standoff following a deadly weekend gunbattle between police and armed former guerrillas, officials said Monday. As of late Monday, the standoff was still ongoing and at least one policeman and three suspected members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a former separatist rebel group, were reported killed in related violence over the weekend.

The military said the violence began Saturday when followers of Pando Mudjasan, a former town vice mayor and leader of the MNLF, fired upon coppers as they prepared to serve him an arrest warrant for murder and illegal firearms and ammunition.

Police said Mudjasan’s armed followers housed inside a fortified compound opened fire on the police as they approached the village of Bualo Lipid in Maimbung town.

Maimbung is on Jolo island in Sulu province, for those interested in the geography of the thing.

One member of the police Special Action Force (SAF) unit and three followers of Mudjasan were killed in the fighting. Ten coppers and a soldier were also reported to have been maimed, while two civilians were hit by stray bullets, the police and military said.

The violence has displaced about 5,000-6,000 civilians, Maj. Andrew Linao, front man for the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom), said Monday. The civilians were sheltering in the Maimbung town gymnasium and being assisted by local officials.

"They fled because they are very afraid, and we are calling on everyone to calm down," Linao told news hounds. "But that is what usually happens when you have a firefight near a populated community."

Civilians near the conflict area were being advised not to return to their homes amid ongoing tensions in the area.

Brig. Gen. Eugenio Boquio, commander of the Army’s 1101st Brigade, said Mudjasan and his brother were maimed but were able to escape, according to intelligence reports. But Mudjasan and his followers have not beat feet from Sulu, an island province in the far southern Philippines, although it was unclear how many of their followers were still inside the compound, Linao said.

Linao said the area where the fighting was concentrated had been cordoned off, with troops and soldiers moving closer in.

"The operation of the SAF and police unit is ongoing to serve the warrant, capture and neutralize Pando [Mudjasan]," Linao said.

"Our effort is continuing now and our Army has set up checkpoints and blockades to prevent them from escaping."

Mudjasan’s group was composed of 20 to 30 individuals prior to the clash on Saturday. But the number of his fighters grew to around 50 individuals during the fighting, officials said.

Political warlords controlling their own private armies is a pervasive problem in the Philippines, especially in the southern Mindanao region where many of these officials were once members of bully boy groups who command their own forces.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was once the country’s largest separatist force until it signed a peace deal with the government in 1996, although that agreement failed.

A splinter group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), would later sign a deal that would supersede the old peace pact and create an expanded Moslem autonomous region in Mindanao now controlled by MILF.

Some ex-MNLF fighters became elected local officials in Jolo, with their former rebel commands forming their own private armed security, officials said.

Military coordination and talks with the Sulu-based MNLF leadership were continuing to ensure that the law enforcement operation was aimed only at Mudjasan due to his criminal charges, officials said.

Mudjasan’s illegal activities were not sanctioned by the MNLF leadership, officials said. The runaway’s group was composed of "sympathizers and (Mudjasan’s) relatives from the MNLF," Brig. Gen. Boquio said.

Reports said police and military officers were about to serve an arrest warrant against former MNLF leader Pando Mudjasan when the suspect’s followers fired at the team, triggering a firefight. https://t.co/Hd7F4ZxSw3 pic.twitter.com/v17bH99wEK
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) June 26, 2023

6,000 Maimbung, Sulu evacuees returning home after shootout, says gov

[MSN] More than 6,000 residents of Maimbung, Sulu who were evacuated for their safety during a deadly shootout over the weekend are now being sent home, the governor said.

On Saturday former vice mayor Pando Mudjasan and his men exchanged fire with government forces who tried to serve a warrant of arrest on him. The encounter left one policeman and four people on Mudjasan's side dead.

According to Jun Veneracion's report on "24 Oras" on Monday, Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan said that some of the evacuees have started returning home.

Mudjasan, who is still on the lam, is suspected to be a leader of the Moro National Liberation Front

...the Turkic paramilitaries intended to replace with their native jihadi ferocity all the highly trained Turkish soldiers Sultan Erdogan I the much beloved has jailed in the last few years for not worshipping the ground he walks upon. The Uighurs and so forth who did not join Al Nusra or ISIS seem to have ended up here...
(MNLF). He is wanted on murder charges and the government also has a warrant to search his premises for firearms and explosives. Authorities are now in pursuit of around 50 gunnies.

Link

Southeast Asia

Teenage Abu Sayyaf militant surrenders in southern Philippines, military says

2023-06-22

[BenarNews] A 13-year-old Egyptian member of the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
bad boy group and a sub-leader of the outfit have surrendered to the military in the southern Philippines, the military said Friday. The teenager gave himself up to troops this week in Indanan, a town in the island province of Sulu, officials said. He joined the bad boy group when he was 10, and blamed his mother, a jacket wallah who died in a kaboom in Indanan in 2019, for his introduction into militancy, he told the military. The boy was with the sub-leader who was identified by an alias, as Ellam, 26. The duo turned over two M-16 rifles, a magazine and 20 ammunition during their surrender.

"He is the last juvenile foreign terrorist," the military said in a statement, referring to the teenager.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine army rescues teen son of Indonesian suicide bombers

2023-06-07

[BenarNews] The Philippine military said Tuesday it had rescued the teenaged son of an Indonesian couple who blew themselves up in a 2019 suicide kaboom that killed 21 people at a Catholic cathedral in the south.

Ahmad Ibrahim Rullie, 15, was rescued nearly two years after his younger sister was recovered from Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
gunnies during a military operation on the same southern island of Jolo.

The military’s Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) said it found the boy on Saturday in the town of Sumisipa after launching an operation to arrest two leaders of an Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Five dead in shooting rampage inside Philippine army camp

2023-02-12

A tragic thing that happens from time to time, but this time not War on Terror. Of interest to us because the last few paragraphs discuss a similar attack by an Abu Sayyaf (ISIS in the southern Philippines) turban last October who’d been hired as a menial, and when American troops added their skills alongside the Philippine army to recapture Marawi City from ISIS in 2017.

[BenarNews] A soldier ran amok inside an army camp in the southern Philippines on Saturday, killing four fellow soldiers and wounding another, the military said.

The suspect, identified as Private Johmar Villabito, of the Army's Service Support Battalion (SSBn), was himself killed in a shootout when two soldiers tried to subdue him.

An investigation has been launched to determine what triggered the deadly rampage in Cagayan de Oro city, the military said. There were initial fears — later dismissed — that state enemies were behind the attack, because Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Marine, 7 militants killed in weekend clashes in southern Philippines

2023-02-07

[BenarNews] Seven button men with suspected links to Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
faceless myrmidons were slain over the weekend by police hunting for a group leader wanted in connection with the 2009 killing of a police superintendent in the southern Philippines, officials said.

The shootout in the Sulu Islands took place on Sunday, a day after a pro-Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Suspected Abu Sayyaf attack injures paramilitary officer, 3 civilians in southern Philippines

2023-01-10

[BenarNews] Gunmen allegedly linked to the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...

The overall strength of the Abu Sayyaf Group was believed to have fallen to 130 active fighters in ASG’s strongholds on the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo, the military said last November.

Group (ASG) injured a paramilitary officer and three civilians during a Sunday night attack on an army detachment on the southern island of Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
, police and military officials said.

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Africa Subsaharan

France attempted to assassinate Russian in Africa, Wagner Group head claims

2022-12-17

See here for the report from Russia.

[Jerusalem Post] Leaders from a Russian mercenary group are pointing fingers at France for a recent attack in an African nation.

The head of a Russian private militia accused France of attempting to assassinate the head of a Russian representative office in the Central African Republic, who was seriously injured on Friday after opening a mail bomb.

Dmitry Syty, head of the "Russian House," was taken to a hospital in the capital Bangui and by late afternoon his condition was serious but stable, the Russian Embassy said, according to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the once-secretive Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, which has supported Central African Republic's (CAR) army since 2018 but gained wider attention with its role in Russia's war in Ukraine, blamed France for the attack.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said the claims were false. "It's even a good example of Russian propaganda and the fanciful imagination that sometimes characterizes this propaganda," she told journalists on a trip to Morocco.

France is the former colonial ruler in CAR, a gold- and diamond-rich country of 4.7 million people whose government is fighting several rebel insurgencies. Since 2018 it has been assisted by hundreds of Russian operatives, including many from Wagner.

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