• Michael Yon: Philippines: Some Notes, Thoughts, and Observations

Amnesty for Abu Sayyaf Terrorist Group will send ‘terrible signal’

  
The Inquirer – Maila Ager

MANILA, Philippines — Three senators have strongly opposed the proposed granting of amnesty to Abu Sayyaf Group, saying this would only send a wrong signal to other “criminal elements.”

“Amnesty for Abu Sayyaf is a bad idea. They’re an extremist fringe who should be taught to follow law and order,” Senator Aqulino Pimentel Jr. said on Wednesday.

“It sends a terrible signal,” said Senator Francis Pangilinan.

“It creates the impression that criminal elements involved in heinous offenses will be accommodated by an amnesty proclamation. Respect for our laws will be diminished severely by an amnesty proclamation,” he said.

An amnesty proclamation for Abu Sayyaf Group, Pangilinan said, would also give an impression the government was incapable of enforcing laws.

More from Counter Jihad

AFP

Hudna Alert

MANILA, Philippnies - Due to the “extra care” exercised by the military during the month-long observance of Ramadan, rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) units were able to rebuild their forces.

* Villagers take up arms against Philippine rebels Jihadists

Brigadier General Jorge Segovia, the Armed Forces’ assistant deputy chief of staff for operations, said this was the latest assessment of Joint Task Force Mindanao on the ongoing offensive against wayward MILF rebels in Central Mindanao.

In a press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo Monday, Segovia said it was also observed that the so-called MILF units have broken down into smaller groups to avoid detection by the pursuing government troops. 

“Those are assessments by our most senior commander in Mindanao (Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna), but that may have something to do also with the extra care that the Armed Forces is observing so as not to affect civilian communities observing the Ramadan,” Segovia said.

Segovia admitted that the limited use of artillery and air strikes during Ramadan have somehow affected the operations.

From the start of Ramadan on Sept. 1 up to 6 p.m. Sunday, Segovia said the military has recorded 71 incidents and that “a big number of these atrocities” were initiated by the MILF, including attacks on communities and hapless civilians.

The official also said that during the Ramadan, three soldiers and a militiaman had been killed while conducting operations while 22 soldiers and four militiamen were wounded.

Segovia said they expect an escalation of fighting with the rebels when Ramadan ends Wednesday, October 1. “The Armed Forces of the Philippines has already prepared for that,” he said. - GMANews.TV

The MILF controls 12,000 men under arms

* Diddling and fiddling doesn’t work. The only way to get on top of this is to summarily execute all MILF leaders, to raze every mosque in the land and hang the clerics. To really clean this place up means to round up the whole Muslim population and put them in re-education camps for as long as it takes to get them to swear off the jihad ideology. But that would be undemocratic. It would ‘violate their human rights’ and their freedom of religion, which Muslims not only don’t grant to others, but involves ‘striking terror in the hearts of the unbelievers’ and to ‘kill the unbelievers wherever you find them…’

* Military seeks more money to pursue operations vs MILF 

* Wishful thinking: Arab investment key to Mindanao dev’t–Nograles

* Palace probes US troops in combat 

* Mindanao unrest in may spread to other countries — analysts 

* Muslim leaders call for halt to AFP assault

* 20 Islamic terrorists roasted as Army overruns MILF camp in Sarangani town

DAVAO CITY — At least 20 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels were believed killed when elements of the Philippine Army’s 73rd Infantry Battalion overran Friday afternoon an MILF camp in Maasim, Sarangani Province.

According to Armed Forces Eastern Mindanao Command spokesman Maj.Armando Rico, the remains of the MILF rebels were dragged by  their fleeing comrades out of their camp in Sitio Maca Uno, Barangay Daliao, Maasim, Sarangani. – Edith Regalado

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 ”The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist MILF is almost impossible and I have given up hope of this …”  Emmanuel Pinol, governor of Cotobato province

*  Here’s an older article that could have been written yesterday:

The Philippines’ MILF rebels

By Orlando de Guzman  BBC, southern Philippines Deep in a jungle hide-out in Mindanao’s remote Lanao del Norte province, about 100 men armed with American-made assault rifles gather to pledge a jihad, or holy war, against the Philippines government.     The MILF controls 12,000 men under arms They are members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF], the largest Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines, and their field commander, known by his radio codename “Congressman”, explained what they were fighting for. “What we want is to achieve freedom and independence for Mindanao’s Muslims. “We would rather die fighting for an independent homeland than continue living under this oppressive system,” he said. For years the MILF operated openly across large swathes of Mindanao. The group set up checkpoints and even shadow governments in a number of towns and villages. But in 2000, the MILF’s main base, Camp Abu Bakar, fell to the Philippines military.  The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist MILF is almost impossible and I have given up hope of this  Emmanuel Pinol, governor of Cotobato province The MILF has now broken up into smaller and more mobile guerrilla units, whose leaders are confined to secret locations. In a BBC interview, Al Haj Murad, the MILF’s vice chairman for military affairs, said that Islam inspired the Muslim independence, or Bangsa Moro, movement. But he stressed that the struggle was really about political and social neglect. “The Bangsa Moro people feel that the Manila government is not doing much for the benefit of the Moro People. Guide to Philippines conflicts “So that even now, the Moro people still consider Manila as a foreign government, a foreign colonial government,” he said. Many of the MILF’s political leaders, like Mr Murad, are former mujahideen, or holy warriors. They volunteered to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and had US backing to do it. Mr Murad met with Osama Bin Laden in the 1980s. But although the MILF has experience overseas, Mr Murad insisted that their struggle was purely a domestic one. “The problem here in Mindanao cannot be part of a fight against global terrorism. It is only a struggle for the aspiration of the Mindanao people,” he said. The US government, however, is watching the MILF closely. Both the US and the Philippines government suspect that members of the MILF have helped train Indonesians connected to Jema’ah Islamiah (JI), the group accused of carrying out the 2002 Bali bombing. The MILF does not deny that it has welcomed foreign visitors to its camps in the past. But its leaders say it has nothing to do with JI or al-Qaeda. Francis Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Manila, has not ruled out listing the MILF as an organization with links to international terrorism. “There has been persistent reporting of foreigners, Indonesians, presumably from JI, running around in areas that are outside of the government’s control, and inside the MILF’s control. “And whenever this is raised, the MILF says, oh, we have nothing to do with it. That kind of thing is really not very credible,” he said. e class=”sibf” border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ width=”203″ align=”right”>

We know that the US is really preparing the military to fight against all the revolutionary groups in Mindanao  Al Haj Murad, MILF vice chairman for military affairs

The Philippines government has taken a more hardline approach to the MILF.

Many local officials have labelled them as terrorists, and are eager for the Americans to follow suit.

Emmanuel Pinol is the governor of Cotobato province, where the MILF is active.

“I do not think it is wise for the national government to talk peace with a terrorist organization. The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist group of MILF is almost impossible and I have given up hope of this,” he said.

Since mid-February, the Philippines government has broken off peace negotiations and has begun large scale assaults on MILF positions, tying up more than half its armed forces in Mindanao.

But now more than ever, the Philippines army can count on the support of the United States.

Americans are keen to help the Filipinos combat terrorism

More than 1,000 US troops have arrived in the southern Philippines for another round of military exercises.

They are training Filipino troops on so-called “small unit tactics”, ideal for fighting guerrilla movements.

The US has said its troops were help to get rid the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping group.

But Al Haj Murad said that the Americans were really after the MILF.

“We know that the US is really preparing the military to fight against all the revolutionary groups in Mindanao,” he said.

“The real purpose is not just to fight the Abu Sayyaf, but the entire enemies of the government, and this includes the MILF,” he said.

 

 

 

A Christian vigilante group known as the Ilagas, warned yesterday that it will start executing 10 Muslim rebels headbangers for every civilian killed as violence in Mindanao intensifies. 

Link

Christian group vow to ‘execute’ Muslim rebels terrorists in Philippines

A Philippine Christian vigilante group warned yesterday that it will start executing 10 Muslim rebels for every civilian killed, as violence in the south of the country intensifies.

MILF murders government ceasefire monitor

…which apparently indicates that the ceasefire is over — as if that weren’t obvious already. “MILF rebels execute gov’t ceasefire monitor,” from AFP, August 28 (thanks to JW):

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas have executed a member of the government’s ceasefire observer after being snatched by the Moro rebels during the recent heavy military-MILF clashes in Maguindanao province, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said.Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, Army’s 6th Infantry Division spokesman, said reports reaching the AFP point to missing GRP-MILF Joint Monitoring Action Team (JMAT) ceasefire observer, Army Sgt. Roger Emben, of the Army’s 64th Infantry Battalion, as having been summarily executed and buried in a shallow grave at the borders of Datu Piang and Mamasapano towns in Maguindanao.

The guerrillas abducted Emben and another companion last week in Barangay Balanakin, Datu Piang, and nothing has been heard from both since.

“We were informed by local officials and evacuees from Barangay Balanakin that the MILF faction that took Emben and his companion allowed the MILF ceasefire monitors to leave first before taking them captives,” Ando stressed.

Emben and companion were separately shot to death near their ceasefire monitoring post, Ando added.

Meanwhile, Christians in the area have had enough:

In similar fashion, a Christian vigilante group known as the Ilagas, warned yesterday that it will start executing 10 Muslim rebels for every civilian killed as violence in Mindanao intensifies.The Reform Ilaga Movement, dormant for decades after gaining prominence in the 1970s during the early stages of the rebellion, has again been on the spotlight in the face of a new campaign by Muslim rebels.

Rebels last week killed scores of people in attacks on Christian villages and towns in fighting that has intensified since a breakdown in talks to end the insurgency by creating a semi-autonomous Muslim region.

“If the fighting continues, for every civilian killed, we will execute 10 MILF rebels,” said Mike Santiago, a spokesman for the vigilante movement.

“We are for arming civilians in areas targeted by MILF and for them to defend their families and property,” he told reporters in his hideout camp in the south of the country….

*****

The religious justification for this comes directly from the ‘meshugge profit’

Ishaq:587 “Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace.
Ishaq:550 “The Muslims (Orcs) met them with their swords. They cut through many arms and skulls. Only confused cries and groans could be heard over our battle roars and snarling.”
Ishaq:204 “‘Men, do you know what you are pledging yourselves to in swearing allegiance to this man?’ ‘Yes. In swearing allegiance to him we are pledging to wage war against all mankind.’”