Despite His Tough Talk, the Philippines’ Duterte Faces Long Odds Against Abu Sayyaf

From the World Politics Review (Feb 2): Despite His Tough Talk, the Philippines’ Duterte Faces Long Odds Against Abu Sayyaf



A Philippine soldier guards the site of bombing at a night market that killed 15 people, Davao city, southern Philippines, Sept. 2, 2016 (AP photo by Manman Dejeto).

Despite His Tough Talk, the Philippines’ Duterte Faces Long Odds Against Abu Sayyaf

Michael Hart Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017

After a spate of kidnappings and renewed clashes with the Philippines’ armed forces over the past year, the Islamist militants of Abu Sayyaf have forged a reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s most radical and brutal jihadi groups. The high-profile beheadings in 2016 of two Canadian hostages has focused global attention on the remote, impoverished and underdeveloped region of the southern Philippines where Abu Sayyaf operates.

The violence has heightened the sense of urgency to find a solution to the long-running insurgency and placed an intense spotlight on President Rodrigo Duterte’s strategy. So far, Duterte’s comments on Abu Sayyaf have, perhaps unsurprisingly, been contradictory. He has warned against a military solution and hinted at negotiations, while at the same time, in his typically outlandish style, threatening to ‘‘eat the militants alive,” or at least ‘‘crush’’, ‘‘erase’’ and ‘‘destroy’’ them.

Despite Duterte’s rhetoric, defeating the militants will be a monumental challenge; six previous Philippine presidents have tried, and failed, to secure a lasting peace in the country’s troubled south. There have been some positive developments in recent years, with large segments of the region’s other two major rebel groups—the Moro National Liberation Front, or MNLF, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF—committing to a peace process. Yet the threat from Abu Sayyaf will be the most difficult for Duterte to tackle, as the group has proved itself to be hardened, adaptable and resilient in the face of numerous military offensives.

Abu Sayyaf was founded in 1991 by radical Islamist preacher Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, after breaking away from the separatist MNLF. The MNLF has fought since 1972 for greater autonomy for the Moro population, the Philippines’ Muslim minority that is concentrated in the southern Mindanao region. Abu Sayyaf is more radical in nature and seeks the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines. It was initially hierarchical and well organized, with substantial funding and training from jihadi groups such as al-Qaida and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah. But after Janjalani’s death in a 1998 military raid, Abu Sayyaf splintered into disparate factions scattered across Mindanao and the islands of the Sulu archipelago.

Shortly after 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush dispatched 600 U.S. Special Forces personnel to Mindanao in a permanent training and advisory role to combat Abu Sayyaf. But that didn’t prevent several high-profile attacks, such as the 2004 bombing of a passenger ferry in Manila Bay, which killed 116 people and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the Philippines’ history.

Abu Sayyaf gained more notoriety in 2014 when one of its key leaders, Isnilon Hapilon, pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State. But that move was more of an attention-grabbing ploy aimed at raising Abu Sayyaf’s profile, rather than signaling the existence of a concrete partnership. More recently, Abu Sayyaf has launched a wave of kidnappings, mainly targeting Westerners but also Filipinos, Malaysians and Indonesians, and holding them for ransom.

Duterte’s promise to eliminate Abu Sayyaf is unlikely to be achieved through a military solution alone.

With Abu Sayyaf appearing more hostile than ever, it poses a significant threat to maritime security, with ambitious piracy operations that have stoked fears of the Philippines becoming a ‘‘new Somalia.’’ There are also fears that hostage-takers could turn their attention to coastal resorts frequented by Westerners, damaging the Philippines’ tourism industry and stability in Southeast Asia as a whole.

How has a relatively small militant organization numbering around just 400 fighters managed to display such resilience? First, remote areas where the jihadis operate have long worked in their favor. The isolated far-southern region of Mindanao, along with the Sulu archipelago, which encompasses the islands of Basilan, Jolo and Tawi-Tawi, are far from Manila, and many of its islands are geographically cut off from the rest of the country by hundreds of miles of ocean. Militants operate with a degree of freedom and stealth in the isolated waterways and mountainous, forested terrain where state presence is almost nonexistent.

Second, Abu Sayyaf’s finances have grown after it shifted in recent years from a politically and ideologically inspired terrorist organization to a profit-driven criminal enterprise, while still masquerading under the banner of the Islamic State in order to attract new recruits and raise its profile. This transition has led to a dramatic increase in its wealth, allowing it to purchase new weapons and speedboats for piracy operations and clashes with government troops.

Kidnapping has become especially lucrative. Abu Sayyaf has entrenched itself in the local economy, using ransom payments to provide salaries to its fighters, buy off corrupt officials and subsidize locals. The vast inflow of cash has created a web of beneficiaries and provided an incentive for kidnappings to continue. As long as individuals and governments around the world are willing to pay the large sums Abu Sayyaf demands, the Philippine government will be fighting a losing battle. The consequences of not paying up are stark: Just hours after the deadline passed in April last year for a ransom of $6.5 million for Canadian John Ridsdel, a video of his brutal decapitation was uploaded to the internet.

Finally, widespread poverty and underdevelopment in the southern Philippines, which has long been neglected by the central government, drive support for Abu Sayyaf. In 2015, official figures indicated that 11 of the country’s 20 poorest provinces were in the war-torn Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where the militants operate. In Sulu, 66 percent of the population was found to be living in poverty, compared to the national average of just 26 percent. Many in the region lack access to basic services, such as education and health care, and necessities, such as food, water and electricity, while decades of poor governance and corruption have allowed crime to flourish. All this has combined with a lack of job opportunities and perceived oppression to make Mindanao a breeding ground for terrorist recruitment amid a growing pool of marginalized, disaffected young men.

Duterte’s promise to eliminate Abu Sayyaf is unlikely to be achieved through a military solution alone. Several previous administrations have taken this military approach, only to fail. Given the interlocking drivers that have not only sustained Abu Sayyaf but boosted it, a broad, long-term strategy that addresses the underlying causes of instability in the southern Philippines is needed to tackle the militant threat.

Bringing lasting change to an area where generations of citizens have grown up knowing only poverty and conflict will be a monumental challenge for Duterte’s government. Despite his lack of a clear strategy so far, Duterte, as the tough-talking leader from the city of Davao in the heart of Mindanao, does offer some hope in a region where people are tired of militancy. Now that the past conflicts with the MNLF and MILF are receding, there is an opportunity for Duterte to push Abu Sayyaf back and bring change to his troubled home region. A new, concerted counterinsurgency strategy that pays greater attention to Mindanao’s development, in addition to its security, would be a first step on the long road toward ending Abu Sayyaf’s reign of terror.

[Michael Hart is a freelance writer and researcher focusing on civil conflict and the politics of East Asia. He has written for The Diplomat, Eurasia Review and Geopolitical Monitor, among other publications.]

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/21072/despite-his-tough-talk-the-philippines-duterte-faces-long-odds-against-abu-sayyaf