‘Angels of Death’

From the Business Mirror (Oct 16, 2020): ‘Angels of Death’ (By Rene Acosta)

The chief of staff of the AFP admits that the radicalization of a Filipino suicide bomber has served as an ‘eye opener’ to security forces.

THREE years after it had stopped the Islamic State (IS) dead on its tracks from establishing an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia in Marawi City, the military now finds itself dealing with the same extremist violent group, this time in the form of suicide bombing.

The birth of IS-inspired suicide bombers in Mindanao, through its local front, the Dawlah Islamiya (DI), has opened a new operational front for the enormously challenged and thinly spread Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as admitted by no less than its chief of staff, Gen. Gilbert Gapay.

Photo of recovered bomb during the arrest of Rullie.

This situation prevails even as the military is still currently contending with threats posed by communist-led insurgents, Moro-inspired terrorism courtesy of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and the territorial row with China over portions of the West Philippine Sea.

Recruitment and captures

“WE are now strengthening and enhancing our program as far as preventing and countering violent extremism,” Gapay said recently on the military’s campaign to stop the IS from further radicalizing Moro extremists and beefing up its local ranks of suicide bombers.

“We are looking now, coordinating with DepEd [Department of Education], looking into different schools, particularly in Sulu and other parts of Mindanao because it is among these [schools]…where recruitment is occurring, particularly among the youth,” he explained.

Gapay’s concern was highlighted by the successive captures a week ago of an Indonesian woman suicide bomber and two local financial conduits of the IS affiliated with the DI, following raids in Sulu and Zamboanga City, where several assembled bombs for suicide attacks were seized.

In this photo provided by the Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Mindanao Command chief Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, Filipino suicide bomber Norman Lasuca sits with his mother Vilman on Wednesday, July 10, 2019. Military and police officials say a DNA test has confirmed the identity of the first known Filipino suicide bomber named as Norman Lasuca. Two attackers carrying explosives killed three soldiers, two villagers and themselves and wounded 22 others in a June 28 attack on an army camp in southern Sulu province. The second attacker remains unidentified.

Rezky Fantasya Rullie alias Cici, who had also been tagged as one of the three architects of the twin suicide bombings in Jolo in August that killed 15 and wounded at least 74 others, was arrested at Barangay San Raymundo in Jolo.

According to Joint Task Force Sulu commander Brig. Gen. William Gonzales, Rullie is the widow of Indonesian foreign terrorist Andi Baso, whom the Army Scout Rangers believed to have been neutralized during a battle in Patikul in late August 2020.

Rullie, who reportedly planned to undertake a suicide bombing after the death of her husband, was arrested along with two women, Inda Nurhaina, wife of ASG subleader Ben Tatoh, and Fatima Sandra Jimlani, wife of Jahid Jam, an ASG member.

The raiding team seized from the three a suicide vest rigged with pipe bombs and other improvised explosive device (IED) components.

A day before their arrests, police intelligence agents arrested in Zamboanga City Kadija Sadji and Abdulman Sarapuddin Tula, who are members of the ASG and IS financial conduits with the DI under Mudzrimir “Mundi” Sawadjaan, also a subleader of the ASG.

“Sadji is the wife of Al Asgar, son of the late Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Janjalani. She belongs to the same financial conduit cell,” National Police chief General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan said in disclosing the arrest.

“Tula is identified in police records as in charge of procuring logistics and provisions for the groups of Sawadjaan and Radullan Sahiron in Sulu,” he added.

Sahiron is the overall leader of the ASG.

‘New direction’

SINCE last year, the IS has stepped up its suicide attacks in Mindanao through its roster of radicalized local and foreign suicide bombers, a direction it took after it was driven away from Marawi City in 2017 following a five-month devastating battle which left most parts of the city in ruins. These are still undergoing reconstruction and rehabilitation.

While the IS has been weakened along with its allied local groups that included the ASG, the three factions of the Maguindanao-based BIFF and the Lanao del Sur-based Maute Group, it has, however, morphed into a deadlier force by employing suicide bombers.

The use and recruitment by the IS of suicide bombers from among the ranks of Islamic locals was a feat that was never achieved by the al-Qaeda and the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah even during their heyday in Mindanao.

In January last year, an Indonesian couple attacked the Jolo cathedral and, several months later, two Army camps were also attacked by three suicide bombers, one of them Filipino Norman Lasuca. The latter had been radicalized while under Hadjan Sawadjaan, a commander of the ASG in Sulu and the leader of the IS in Mindanao.

The military believes it has neutralized Hadjan in one of its battles with the group in Sulu, and this is why his nephew, Mudzrimir, took over and ramped up DI’s activities.

Bothersome

Gapay said IS’s effort in Mindanao is bothersome, noting that it has not only managed to recruit a Filipino suicide bomber but it has already radicalized some local women.

“We cannot imagine a Filipino suicide bomber really being recruited, or being…a suicide bomber. Usually, we expect that suicide bombers would be foreign terrorists who have slipped into our country, but we were really surprised when we had that first incident in 2019 in the person of Mr. Lasuca,” Gapay said.

“It was really an eye opener…the effort to recruit, to radicalize and even mold the suicide bomber out of Filipinos is really at that level,” he added.

Since the military believes that IS’s recruitment happens both among the ranks of local militants and students of Islamic schools, or Madrasas, it is taking steps to shield them from IS influence and recruitment.

“We are monitoring them really, where we suspect that there is some sort of radicalization activities going on, and we are coordinating closely with concerned government agencies as well as local government units in this regard, so really, more on the preventive side of it,” Gapay said.

Indeed, the AFP has its hands full once again with real threats, while caught between a rock and a hard place. If another attack happens it will be blamed for failing to stop it. Yet it remains on the defensive as more than two dozen groups are questioning the recently enacted Anti-Terror Act (ATA) that was meant to put teeth to the 2007 Human Security Act.

Meantime, it is locked in a tight race with the grim “avengers,” the terrorist widows turned “angels of death”—of whom more are believed to be lurking, waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/10/17/angels-of-death/