“The organization has pledged their affiliation to ISIS after the leadership of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria made direct contact with Abu Sayyaf’s senior leader Isnilon Hapilon back in December 2016.”
A Filipino soldier, kidnapped recently in the southern Philippines by Abu Sayyaf fighters, was found beheaded hours after government troops killed three members of the ISIS-linked group.
The head of Sergeant Anni Siraji, of the Army’s 32nd Infantry Battalion, was found some distance away from his body in Patikul town in Sulu. Siraji was most likely abducted and executed because of his involvement with the military and peace initiatives in Sulu.
General Sobejena said, “He was not actually a combatant. We were using him to engage stakeholders because he was a Tausug, like most Abu Sayyaf.”
The Tausūg or Suluk people are an ethnic group of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Tausūg are part of the wider political identity of Muslims of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan, known as the Moro ethnic group.
Earlier on Sunday, the military killed three Abu Sayyaf fighters on the resort island of Bohol, and was reportedly pursuing at least three more. Abu Sayyaf fighters had been in the area after a failed attempt to kidnap tourists.
“We have reports indicating that they were also wounded and running out of supplies,” said Colonel Edgard Arevalo, chief of the military’s public affairs office.
A group of about ten Abu Sayyaf fighters infiltrated Bohol this month. Western countries have issued travel warnings about visiting the island.
The US State Department has long had travel warnings about the threat in the area:
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to avoid all non-essential travel to the Sulu Archipelago and through the southern Sulu Sea, and to exercise extreme caution when traveling to the island of Mindanao, due to continued terrorist threats, insurgent activities, and kidnappings.
For decades, the ISIS-linked Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has been considered the most notorious bandit organization in Southeast Asia. It carried out the biggest act of terrorism in the country’s history when it bombed a ferry in 2004, killing more than 100 people. A recent video clearly shows a new level of brutality not seen in the Philippines in the past few years.
“Aquino, watch this. This is what happens when you don’t do what we told you to do [pay ransom]. And if I catch you, I will cut your head off too,” said a fighter brandishing a sharp hunting knife. He was addressing former Philippine President Benigno Aquino.
The man then slowly decapitated his hostage, hacking and slicing with the blade. It took several seconds for his victim to die. The 92-second video was uploaded to YouTube a few months ago. The executioner did not even hide his face.
Beheading is one of the most brutal forms of execution. It is made worse when the execution is not done in one fell swoop, as was done officially with the guillotine in France up until 1977. The execution carried out by Abu Sayyaf was done deliberately slow, with slashes and hacks from a hunting knife, as is the fashion of ISIS and ISIS aligned groups.
Sulu, a southern backwater island province in the Philippines, has gained notoriety as Southeast Asia’s kidnapping capital. It is jungle terrain where the Abu Sayyaf is known to operate.
Last June, the Abu Sayyaf group beheaded Canadian hostage Robert Hall, who was held on a southern Philippine island after ransom demands were not met.
In late April, the severed head of Canadian hostage John Ridsdel, 68, was found in southern Sulu province. Ridsdel was kidnapped last September along with Hall, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, and Filipina Marites Flor from a tourist resort on Samal Island in the southern Philippines. Abu Sayyaf had been demanding ransom for their release.
It was unclear how much the group was demanding for Hall’s release. In April, the army said the al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked organization had threatened to behead a captive if $6.4m wasn’t paid for each one.
Mujiv Hataman, governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, denounced Hall’s murder. “It has only been a week since Ramadan began, and it is appalling that this holy month we set aside for prayer and reflection has already been violated by extremists here and abroad, as they wage violence in the name of our faith,” Hataman said in a statement.
Abu Sayyaf is a small but highly active group known for beheading, kidnapping, bombing, and extortion. Abu Sayyaf, which is considered a “terrorist” organization by Canada and other Western countries, emerged in the early 1990s as an offshoot of a separatist rebellion by minority Moro Muslims.
The organization has pledged their affiliation to ISIS after the leadership of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria made direct contact with Abu Sayyaf’s senior leader Isnilon Hapilon back in December 2016. ISIS instructed Hapilon to find a suitable area to establish a caliphate in Mindanao, said Philippine defense chief Secretary Delfin Lorenzana
Kidnap-for-ransom operations have long been a lucrative business in the region, but have escalated in recent years. Fourteen Indonesian hostages were recently released by the Abu Sayyaf after ransoms were paid. The abductions have also become more brazen, and have begun to spread beyond the Abu Sayyaf heartland of Sulu province to Palawan and Davao provinces.
The group has been holding more than two dozen captives, most of them Vietnamese sailors, as well as more than 20 foreign and local hostages. They are being held in jungle encampments in the southern part of the country.
Because of the kidnapping of it’s citizens, the Malaysian government has closed it’s border between Sabah state and the Philippines. Joint naval border patrols by Philippine, Malaysian, and Indonesian forces are working to halt kidnappings and piracy in the Sulu and Celebes seas.
On February 27th, Abu Sayyaf posted a video showing the beheading of a German man held for three months after demands for ransom were not met. The video, reposted on Monday by the monitoring group SITE, showed an elderly captive slumped on a grassy lot while a man held a knife to his neck.
“Now, they’ll kill me,” the 70-year-old man said before he was executed on Sunday after a ransom demand deadline passed. SITE identified the man as Jurgen Gustav Kantner, held by Abu Sayyaf in the jungles of southern Sulu province.
The Philippine government issued a statement condemning the “barbaric” killing of the German hostage following the release of the video. “Up to the last moment, many sectors, including the armed forces of the Philippines exhausted all efforts to save his life. We all tried our best. But to no avail,” said Jesus Dureza, the presidential peace adviser.
Philippine officials have said Abu Sayyaf was seeking a ransom of $605,000.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert has confirmed that the German hostage was beheaded and condemned “the abhorrent act.” “After weeks of worry, we have today the sad certainty that a German hostage has been barbarically murdered by terrorist kidnappers in the Philippines,” he said, adding that “in our deepest grief, our thoughts are with the relatives and friends of our countryman. The killing once again shows how unscrupulous and inhumane the actions of these terrorists are. We must stand together and fight against them.”
The Philippine army said it was working with local authorities in looking for the captive’s body. Kantner was abducted on November 5 from his yacht off the southern Philippines. The armed group’s fighters shot and killed his 59-year-old wife after she fought back – they left her body in the boat.
On Sunday April 23rd, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered troops to kill fleeing Muslim militants behind the foiled attack in the central resort province of Bohol instead of bringing them to him alive, calling the extremists “animals.” “If you want me to be an animal, I’m also used to that. We’re just the same,” Mr. Duterte said, “I can dish out, go down what you can 50 times over.”
The president said that if a terrorist was presented to him when he’s in a foul mood, “give me salt and vinegar and I’ll eat his liver.” The crowd broke into laughter, but Mr. Duterte cut in, “It’s true if you make me angry.”
