Foreign jihadist group said to be training BIFF and ASG in urban warfare, bomb making

From InterAksyon (Oct 21): Foreign jihadist group said to be training BIFF and ASG in urban warfare, bomb making

A foreign group of jihadists with links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is suspected to be training rogue Moro fighters and followers of the extremist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in bomb making and urban guerilla warfare in Sulu and Central Mindanao, a source from the Philippine National Police (PNP) disclosed on Tuesday.

The source, who has requested anonymity for now, indicated the presence of at least eight foreign jihadists. Two of them, identified as Malaysian bombmaker Zulkipli Bin Hir alias Marwan and Singaporean Mauwiya, are said to be leading the pack of foreign trainers.

Both are known members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesian terror group blamed for a number of deadly attacks in Southeast Asia, including the Bali Bombing on October 2002 that killed at least 200 mostly Australian tourists and wounded hundreds of others.

"These trainers are a mixture of foreign nationals," the source said. "But they have a common cause."

He added that the other trainers are of Middle Eastern origin: "We are still trying to gather their profiles, complete their dossiers."

The source added that these foreign jihadists are apparently training members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MIF) and elements of ASG in bomb-making and urban guerillla warfare tactics.

He added that the training is done in batches, with the last batch having "graduated" sometime in July, or a month before the ASG and some BIFF commanders pledged allegiance to ISIS, which has taken over huge swaths of territories in the Middle East.

"The training is a series of short courses mostly on urban guerilla warfare," the source said, "but they are continuous."

He added that the Middle-Eastern trainers have already relocated themselves to Central Mindanao, where there is military activity against Moro rebels, while Marwan and Mauwiya were left behind in Sulu to train ASG fighters.

Just recently, the military launched punitive attacks against suspected ASG members in Sulu after the bandit group freed their two German hostages reportedly in exchange for a P250-million ransom.

However, he said that, based on information from their intelligence assets within the group, the ASG did not receive the full amount of the ransom money for the two Germans, who were captured inn the high seas by the ASG in Southern Palawan last April: "According to our information, the ASG received only P240 million."

Roldolfo "Boggie" Mendoza, a retired PNP officer and anti-terrorism expert, shared in previous interviews that, "once you have sworn allegiance to ISIS, you are considered part of the caliphate army. There should be no debate here. ISIS is multi-national."

Mendoza, now president of the think-thank Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR) is credited with exposing "Oplan Bujinka" in 1995, a plot allegedly hatched by al-Qaeda linked militants for launching attacks in US territory, where the militants planned to hijack commercial planes and used them as flying bombs aimed at select targets.

Although the plot was "foiled" in 1995, it materialized six years later when 11 al-Qaeda terrorists managed to hijack two commercial planes on September 11, 2001 and slammed them through the World Trade Center in New York City, snuffing out more than 2,000 lives and inflicting injuries to thousands of other victims.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/97682/foreign-jihadist-group-said-to-be-training-biff-and-asg-in-urban-warfare-bomb-making