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SCMP Reporter

AS WITH most terrorist groups, the latest guerilla army to strike fear into the hearts of the innocent has a chilling name steeped in history.

  And like numerous other factions, the Abu Sayyaf group is fighting for its religious beliefs and the right to self-determination.

  Taken from the name of an ancient Islamic warrior, Abu Sayyaf is a traditional Arabic phrase and symbol, roughly meaning ''Father of the Sword''. It is generally used to refer to someone who is strong and violent.

  In line with this warlike image, the Abu Sayyaf has become part of the global spread of Islamic fundamentalism stemming from Iran.

  But the Abu Sayyaf group is different: it has chosen to wage its secessionist jihad, or holy war, in a place most would call paradise.

   Paradise in this case is not a Middle Eastern hot spot, but remote jungle islands surrounded by the crystal waters of the southern Philippines.

   ''Muslim extremists are not afraid to die because the way to paradise is in the supreme sacrifice,'' said a Philippine government official.

   Nearly 1,000 kilometres from Manila, yet only a short boat ride from predominantly Muslim Malaysian and Indonesian territory in Borneo, secessionists on the two main islands, Basilan and Jolo, have long sought their independence.

   Many of the Muslim people that inhabit the Sulu Archipelago have been split by relatively modern national boundaries, and as a result they travel quite freely between neighbouring states.

   Numerous Muslim groups have emerged from the poor fishing villages scattered across the islands, but most have evaporated over the years, taking a more conciliatory path or becoming entangled with more radical factions.

   The separatist revolt was launched, with Arab support, in 1972 by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which waged a bloody but unsuccessful guerilla campaign for a Muslim state for the six million strong Islamic community in the region.

   A cease-fire was brokered in 1976 by Libya and an agreement between the two sides was signed in Tripoli. Recently the MNLF has adopted a more diplomatic approach in dealing with the Government.

   However, the secessionist movement has once again become a rallying call as Islamic fundamentalism takes a grip on the still troubled area.

   Under the command of Abubakar Janjalani, and armed with weapons taken from soldiers they have killed or smuggled into the country by sea, the Abu Sayyaf guerillas have waged an increasingly violent campaign of kidnap and terror over the last three years.

   It culminated last month in the massacre of 15 Christians and the continued abduction of a priest, Father Cirilo Nacorda, by an affiliated group.

    The murders took place on Basilan Island in retaliation for an army assault on Abu Sayyaf mountain hideouts - one of which was called Camp Gaddafi after the Libyan leader - on neighbouring Jolo Island.

  The affiliated group, which is believed to look to Janjalani as its leader, seized a total of 74 people in retaliation for the military assault which killed at least 31 rebels and wounded a further 17.

  Eleven government troops were killed and 21 injured in the attack on the well-defended positions, which were eventually given up by the extremists.

   In addition to those killed in the battle for the Jolo bases, Abu Sayyaf's political affairs chief, Asmad Abdul, was shot dead in Zamboanga after he was arrested in connection with a bomb threat early last month.

   According to a military spokesman, he was killed when he tried to grab a policeman's gun. Using helicopter gunships, field artillery and naval support, and backed by around 2,000 soldiers and Marines, the operation succeeded in overrunning one of the main bases but has so far failed to track down the surviving guerillas who split into small groups and disappeared into the jungle.

   It was the Government's biggest military operation in the region since the 1970s and was aimed at wiping out a group which had started to threaten the long-term peace plans for the region.

   Scores of people, including foreign missionaries, have been kidnapped in the southern Philippines by Muslim gunmen and held to ransom to fund weapons and other supplies.

   Abu Sayyaf has also been blamed for a series of bomb blasts, grenade attacks, assassinations and ambushes, including one in February 1993 which killed 21 Marines and four rebels.

   The first attack credited to the group was in August 1991, when a grenade was thrown into a crowd of people in Zamboanga, killing two missionaries and wounding 40 others.

   Since then, government officials have attributed 15 ''violent incidents'' to the group, including another reprisal attack for the Jolo assault in June which killed three people and injured 28 in a shopping centre in General Santos City on the main southern island of Mindanao.

   Task force commander Colonel Ponciano Millena told Marines involved in the operation on the islands that the ''Abu Sayyaf group is a national menace. We cannot allow it to continue''.

   Catholic Bishop Romulo de la Cruz demanded the death penalty for the guerillas after they killed the 15 Christians and called them ''godless and evil men''.

   The kidnapping of Christian foreigners is believed to have started in August 1992, when Franciscan missionary Gerald Fraszczack of Chicago was abducted. He was released several months later.

   In March last year a Spanish priest, Reverend Bernardo Blanco, was kidnapped but he escaped two months later. Earlier in January the same year, renegade Muslim rebels in two boats snatched two Catholic nuns at gunpoint while they were swimming about 10 minutes' walk from their Carmelite monastery on Jolo.

   Sister Julia Foraster, 63, and Sister Fatima Uribarren, 38, both from Spain, who worked at a leper clinic on the island run by the Carmelite Sisters of Charity, were held in a mountain hideout. They were eventually handed over to MNLF separatist rebels and finally released on February 5, after 20 days in captivity.

   The kidnappers did not physically harm the two nuns but psychologically tormented them by jeering and laughing at their Christian beliefs, which they said they despised. In a sinister message, Sister Foraster and Sister Uribarren were also told never to return to the ''lawless islands''.

    The incident provided one of the first real signs of the influence that Middle Eastern officials have in the region when Libyan ambassador, Rajib Abdullaziz Azzarouz, and Palestinian envoy, Musa Odeh, were called upon to secure their release after other efforts failed.

  ADDITIONAL pressure came from MNLF chairman, Nur Misuari, who wrote to the gang from his base in Saudi Arabia urging them to release the nuns.

     The group, also known as the Mujahedeen Commando Freedom Fighters, had threatened to launch a further wave of attacks in Manila and throughout the country if the military did not stop its attacks on rebel camps.

    Until recently, it looked as though this was a movement confined to the islands in the Sulu Sea, southwest of Zamboanga and with no major outside influences other than its religious bond to the international Muslim brotherhood.

   But the Abu Sayyaf group, thought to be about 100 strong, espouses a fundamentalist philosophy markedly different from the more secular MNLF which resumed peace talks with the Government last December after a six-year break.

  Believed to be a breakaway faction of the front, the extremist group has also severed its links with the MNLF, which is now providing intelligence to the military on the whereabouts of the kidnapped priest and Abu Sayyaf members.

   Janjalani, who is in his 30s and has been described as ''brilliant'', founded the Abu Sayyaf group after spending some time in Saudi Arabia studying Islam in the 1980s, before continuing his studies in Libya.

   It is almost certain that at some stage in his travels in the Middle East, Janjalani was in touch with Muslim fundamentalists seeking to expand the ''Nation of Islam''.

   On his return to the Philippines, he went on a lecture tour of the main Muslim cities on Mindanao, preaching from the Koran about Islam.

   Philippine authorities believe Janjalani, who is fluent in Arabic and extremely knowledgeable about the Koran, used this as a recruitment drive for poor fishermen, vendors and drivers, and for educated students and teachers.

   A member of the Muslim Tausog tribe which lives mainly in the Sulu Archipelago, he is now one of the most wanted men in the Philippines but is believed to have fled to nearby Sabah by boat.

   ''It is very hard to assert where he is,'' the Philippine official said.

  ''The action is very near the southwestern boundary of the Philippines, and the people from Sabah come and go without passing through normal checks.''    He said an intelligence operation was continuing but the only contact with the rebels was via two guerilla commanders, identified as Barahami Sali and Amil Omar, who have been negotiating with the Basilan authorities.

    The official described it as a ''cat and mouse game'' with a well-trained group that knows the terrain, but he added that the army had the support of most Muslims in the area who were fed up with the killing and wanted peace.

   No one is sure who exactly makes up the group, how many members there are and how many sympathisers live in the scattered villages. More importantly, and with far more serious ramifications, authorities are looking into links with four foreign Muslim nationals who have been arrested for ''visa irregularities'' over the last two weeks.

   This is believed to be just a temporary measure while possible ties between the two Jordanians, an Iranian and a Pakistani and the Abu Sayyaf group are investigated. Other foreigners are also being checked.

    The last person to be detained was Mahmoud Abdel-Jalil, 27, the Jordanian regional director of the International Islamic Relief Organisation who has lived in the Philippines for the past 10 years. He was arrested on July 8. The arrests began after military intelligence said Muslim foreigners, believed to be linked to groups in Iran and Pakistan, were providing support to the extremists. One of those arrested was carrying a large amount of cash.

  ''It is quite surprising to have so many foreign Muslims in this area in the south,'' the Philippine Government official said. ''It is not exactly a tourist area.

  ''Foreign students in the Philippines have the tendency to support Muslim extremists.''     It is the involvement - and possible support - of suspected Iranian and Pakistani fundamentalists and Mujahedeen veterans from the Afghan war, experienced in guerilla tactics and explosives, that has put the Abu Sayyaf group in the spotlight.

   This is seen as part of a greater picture based on an Iranian policy of actively ''exporting the revolution and supporting fundamentalism'' wherever it can.

   One Hong Kong official said: ''They are committed to support any fundamentalist movement they can.''   And one British-based terrorism expert said it was part of the spread of fundamentalism and could all be traced back to Iran, which has left a footprint of involvement in Muslim groups all over the world.

   ''They supply training, money and motivation. The Iranians are doing this sort of thing all over the world.

   ''It is due to the economic and political situation, and due to Iran which is supplying the drive.''  IRAN has been on top of the target watch-list for the British, US and Israeli secret services for a number of years as it is perceived as one of the greatest security threats to the West.

   Western intelligence services have noted an increase in activity of Iranian agents in Southeast Asia recently, especially in the Philippines and Thailand, where they are believed to have set up local cells.

   Last week, three Iranians were still in jail in Bangkok, accused of murdering a Thai man and plotting to blow up the Israeli Embassy with a powerful truck bomb in March.

    However, one Western expert is sceptical whether the Abu Sayyaf is a truly fundamentalist group or has simply adopted certain aspects of the cause to suit its purposes in the Philippines.

  ''Fundamentalism calls for one nation of Islam, not divided,'' the expert said, explaining that this was normally one of the main demands made.

   ''Abu Sayyaf could be a Philippine version of fundamentalism, but what is Janjalani's goal?    ''He could be just another terrorist, or he could be a Robin Hood.'' 



The Philippine jihad