BIFF renegades, but not Usman, behind Bangsamoro Justice Movement - ISAFP source

From InterAksyon (Oct 8): BIFF renegades, but not Usman, behind Bangsamoro Justice Movement - ISAFP source



While it is true former officers of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters have formed a new organization, the Bangsamoro Justice Movement, Abdul Basit Usman, the bomb expert trained by the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, has nothing to do with them, a ranking military intelligence officer said.

The officer, from the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, agreed to be interviewed on condition he not be named.

He disputed earlier claims by Rodolfo “Boogie” Mendoza, who once headed the Philippine National Police Intelligence Group and is now president of the private Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, who said Usman organized the BJM after recruiting Ustadz Ali Tambako, who used to be a close aide of BIFF founder Ameril Umbra Kato.

Mendoza earlier said Usman had led the BJM in declaring allegiance to the Islamic State, the jihadist movement that has declared a “caliphate” after capturing wide swaths of Syria and Iraq.

But the source said it was Tambako who organized the BJM, which has “more or less 100 men,” all of them former BIFF fighters.

The BIFF is the armed wing of Kato’s Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, which he created after breaking away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front over disagreements in the direction peace negotiations with government were taking.

Kato’s group has refused to abandon its struggle for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

The ISAFP source also said Tambako and his men were kicked out of the BIFF not because of the beheading of farmers in Midsayap, North Cotabato in September last year but because Kato’s chief of staff, Kagi Karialan, blamed them for a bomb attack last year in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao in which he was wounded.

He did confirm that Kato’s former political affairs officer, Abdul Jan Pago, has joined Tambako. Pagao is reportedly among the gunmen who participated in the November 23, 2009 Ampatuan massacre in which 58 persons, 32 of them media workers, were killed.

As for Usman, the source said the bomb expert “cannot join Ali Tambako’s group” because this would leave him with “no safe haven in Central Mindanao” because of the existing “rido” or blood feud between Tambako and not only Kariala but with the BIFF as a whole.

He said Usman’s only safe haven is with the BIFF.

“Basit Usman cannot abandon Umbra Kato since the latter has strong influence in Central Mindanao … So the claim of Mendoza (about) Usman joining Tambako’s group is farfetched, it’s like self-mutilation in front of the BIFF,” he said.

Besides, he added, “We believe that Usman doesn’t have to use the group of Tambako to gain more prominence. Kilala na siya (He is already known) as a notorious terrorist, as a businessman being hired by the BIFF and the Abu Sayyaf Group and now Tamabako’s group to teach them how to make bombs. That’s all he can do for a living.”

Meanwhile, the intelligence officer said they have received fresh reports indicating the “health condition of Umbra Kato is improving.”

“Ang sabi e medyo nakakalakad na raw (The word is he is walking again),” he said.

Kato had suffered a series of strokes that rendered him bedridden soon after his breakaway from the MILF, whose 105th Base Command he used to head.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/96901/biff-renegades-but-not-usman-behind-bangsamoro-justice-movement---isafp-source