Early in January last year, Philippine
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana launched a new security strategy that would
within six months "significantly reduce" the strength of terrorist
groups in the south of the island nation. These include the Maute Group,
which styles itself as the Islamic State in Lanao, and the Maguindanao-based
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. The most fearsome of them all is, of
course, the Abu Sayyaf Group, which runs a kidnapping-for-ransom conglomerate
in the Basilan-Sulu-Tawi-tawi area.
In mid-January, the newly minted chief of
staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Gen. Eduardo Año, ordered the
just-installed commander of the Western Mindanao Command, Maj. Gen. Carlito
Galvez, to "eliminate within six months, the Abu Sayyaf Group."
Late during the month, the military
overran the Maute stronghold in the mountain town of Butig, Lanao del Sur. In
the fighting for control of the town, artillery and air support for the troops
was decisive.
Right at the first salvo, 15 terrorists
were killed, including five companions of Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, the overall
commander of the Abu Sayyaf, who is recognized by the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) as its amir in Southeast Asia. Among the five was an
Indonesian who bore the alias Mohisen.
Fifty-year-old Hapilon was severely
wounded so that he had to be evacuated on a makeshift stretcher and was in dire
need of a blood transfusion. Two other foreign terrorists, probably not
fighters but advisers, were known to be in Butig during the fighting.
The Amir's Mission
What was Hapilon, a Basilan Island-born
Yakan, doing in the mountains of Central Mindanao? And what were those foreign
jihadists up to? The word is that ISIS had mandated Hapilon to unite the
various terrorist factions into one solid fighting force and to prepare the
heartland of Mindanao to become the ISIS headquarters in Southeast Asia.
The authorities give a lot of credence to
this report: Defense Secretary Lorenzana recently said he was sure there was
already a strong link between ISIS and the local terrorists. Days later
President Duterte said ISIS had found its way to the Philippines through an
alliance with local terror groups. Hapilon and foreign advisers from ISIS were
probably conducting a plenum to firm up that alliance when the military barged
on them with big guns blazing.
No doubt the terrorists – the Maute Group
and the Abu Sayyaf – suffered an enormous blow in Butig. But they are far from
finished. Just two weeks after the Butig clash, a military intelligence
officer, Maj. Jerico Mangalus, and a soldier, Cpl. Bryan Libot, were killed in
a firefight with Maute Group fighters in Marawi City, the provincial capital of
Lanao del Sur.
Meanwhile, the Sulu-based faction of the
Abu Sayyaf released a video in which the German hostage, Jürgen Gustav Kantner,
appealed to his family and the German government to pay a 30-million peso
($590,000) ransom or else the group would behead him as it did many other
kidnapping victims whose families failed to pay up. The Abu Sayyaf's top
commander may be gravely wounded but as a terrorist group, it has not been
defanged.
Nor are there any guarantees that the
terrorists will be crushed in six months' time, not even if the military sends
in 51 battalions backed up by artillery and the firepower of FA-50 jet
fighters. What, by the way, is behind this obsession with a six-month time
frame? It is probably seen as the minimum time span needed to score a knockout
on the jihadist movement in the southern Philippines.
In a classic situation of insurgency, the
state always feels the need to quickly administer the coup de grâce in order to
win. On the other hand, the insurgents understand that they have only to
survive and to keep on surviving in order to eventually win. In the case of the
southern Philippines, it is possible that in the months ahead the military
will notch a few more dramatic triumphs in its campaign against terror but it
is also highly probable that the Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group will still be
alive and breathing long after the six-month deadline has passed.
Tools of War
Evidently the Philippine military
authorities have done their share of reading the vast body of literature on
counterinsurgency. For instance, in October last year, Gen. Año's predecessor,
Gen. Ricardo Visaya, told the military establishment: "Let us use all
available tools of war in inflicting not just physical destruction, but also in
rendering a psychological blow against the Abu Sayyaf. Ensure their isolation
from their local support system and make the communities resilient against the
influence of terrorists."
But how? He did not say. Since then
nothing has been reported about how the military would go about isolating the
terrorists from their "local support system." This is worrisome
because it may be a sign that the Philippine military is fighting a
conventional war when what it needs to do is to wage a smart
counterinsurgency campaign – a struggle for hearts and minds and for political
legitimacy.
For as long as the terrorists enjoy the
support of a mass base – the communities of relatives, friends and supporters
who share their origins, grievances and aspirations – somehow they will always
be provided with food, material supplies, intelligence, safe havens and
comfort.
In the case of the Abu Sayyaf, there is a
tight symbiotic relationship between the group and its mass base. In the first
half of last year, the group collected a windfall of some $7.3 million in
ransom money. The mass base got a good part of that bonanza, which they used to
feed their families, maintain their households and send their children to
school. Thus the Abu Sayyaf earns political legitimacy in the eyes of the mass
base.
You cannot delegitimize the Abu
Sayyaf by merely sending 20,000 more soldiers to Basilan, Sulu and
Tawi-tawi. Of course, it is auspicious for a counterinsurgency force to have
many boots on the ground and to be able to deploy howitzers and South
Korean-made combat aircraft, as well as a huge fleet of Navy speedboats in the
Sulu Sea. But it is also essential that the main body of this force must be
highly trained and disciplined professional soldiers and police who will
carefully avoid antagonizing the local population.
It makes no sense – and it is potentially
disastrous – to inject into this force a bunch of rogue cops from Manila, many
of whom have failed the drug test and are accused of various crimes, including
extortion and false arrests. Let us hope President Duterte reconsiders his plan
to send these scalawags to fight the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan.
It is vital that this counterinsurgency
force must be supplied with accurate intelligence by those who are intimately
familiar with the physical and psychosocial terrain in which the terrorists
operate. That is how ambuscades are avoided.
Civilian Force
Since this is a war for hearts and minds,
the military component must be supported by a civilian force of social workers,
political organizers and economic enablers who will plan the long-term economic
future of the community while carrying out palliative measures to address the
urgent problem of the people's poverty. This is where the Office of the
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, with its broad mandate to launch and
fund development projects, should come in.
For in the ultimate analysis the real
enemy is poverty, along with the social and political grievances that it
breeds. It is no coincidence that Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-tawi, where the Abu
Sayyaf is based, are among the country's poorest provinces.
Another very poor province is Maguindanao,
home to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Certified as the poorest of
the poor provinces is Lanao del Sur, bastion of the Maute Group.
Failure to address the grievances of the
poor will only prolong a brutal separatist insurgency that makes use of terror
tactics and boasts ideological and financial links to international terrorism.
Jamil Maidan Flores
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