Moro National Liberation Front

Abu Sayyaf Under Rising Pressure in Southern Philippines’ Maritime Borderlands

Michael HartLeave a comment
Trilateral naval patrols by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia in the Sulu Sea since 2017 have restricted the transit of Abu Sayyaf fighters. (Image Source: US Pacific Fleet)

Five years ago, the notorious Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf had aligned itself with the Islamic State and was in the midst of its most audacious assault. Led by Isnilon Hapilon, it battled Philippine forces alongside militants from the Maute Group and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters for five months in the southern city of Marawi. This brazen attempt to seize territory and create a caliphate followed a decade in which Abu Sayyaf had ruled the Sulu and Celebes Seas off Mindanao’s western coast, where it regularly kidnapped seafarers and collected millions of dollars in ransom payments.

Yet the fortunes of Southeast Asia’s most feared jihadi group have altered dramatically. Abu Sayyaf is now in steep decline. Hapilon was killed during the final days of fighting in Marawi and each of his successors have since met the same bloody end. Its funding from the Islamic State has dried up—as have foreign recruits. Philippine forces now have the militants on the retreat and with support from Malaysian troops in Sabah have cut-off maritime corridors for jihadists hoping to travel from abroad. Local dynamics, too, on the islands where Abu Sayyaf still exists, suggest it is firmly on the back foot.

Basilan influence fading

It is on Basilan, where Hapilon’s faction used to reign supreme, that Abu Sayyaf’s losses have been most visible. His successor, Furuji Indama, was killed in September 2020 amid heavy clashes with the military in Zamboanga Sibugay province, where he was tracked-down after escaping Basilan. Attacks on Basilan near ceased after Indama’s death, and Abu Sayyaf’s latest leader there, Radzmil Jannatul (alias Khubayb), was killed by soldiers in late-March, prompting many of his followers to surrender.

The military is confident that the threat on Basilan has receded and recently declared 29 barangays free from Abu Sayyaf influence. This included areas of Isabela city and in the towns of Al-Barka, Hadji Muhtamad, Maluso, and Ungkaya Pukan, where once-frequent skirmishes are now rare. The military said its observations found no evidence of community support or resource generation for the group, and no sign of extremist teaching or radicalization in Islamic schools on the Muslim-majority island.  

Sulu hideout under pressure

The neighbouring island of Sulu saw a higher threat from Abu Sayyaf in recent years. Militants there killed scores in a string of suicide bombings from 2018 to 2020, targeting military installations and a Catholic church. Yet rather than signalling a permanent shift in tactics, the blasts appear an explosive last act by extremists aware they were on the run and keen to cause maximum damage before being caught. A month before the final blast, in July 2020, the military reported that Abu Sayyaf’s leader in Sulu, Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, had been killed in an encounter near Patikul. His body was never found and the group never confirmed his death—but he has not been sighted since, and is presumed dead.

Since killing scores of churchgoers in bombings in Jolo in 2019, Abu Sayyaf’s capabilities on the island have been degraded by the Philippine military. (Image Source: PCOO)

Hatib’s bomb-making nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, is now the group’s leading figure in Sulu. Two of his brothers were killed by the military last year: Mujafal Sawadjaan died in Patikul in April, while Al-Al Sawadjaan was shot dead in Jolo last June. But despite rumours of his death, Mundi is likely to still be alive. According to local intelligence reports, he was sighted in January buying food supplies but is likely now in a safe house and reliant on relatives for support. Mundi’s uncle Hatib Majid Saeed (alias Amah Pattit) and veteran Radullan Sahiron remain key leaders in Sulu, though the latter’s faction has lain low for years and has not aligned with Islamic State like the Sawadjaan clan. The military reports that, as of 2021, Abu Sayyaf fighters in Sulu numbered 132, down from 300-400 in the last few years.

Links between the Islamic State and Sawadjaan’s cohort are now only symbolic, with financial ties severed after the group was defeated in Iraq and Syria. Profits from kidnappings have also reduced sharply. The last recorded Abu Sayyaf kidnapping-at-sea was in January 2020, when five Indonesian fishermen were seized from a vessel off Tambisan island, near the Malaysian sea border. They were rescued by the Philippine military last March, after a boat being used to transport them overturned in high seas. With commercial vessels avoiding the area, Abu Sayyaf now holds no known captives.   

Philippine military build-up

The group’s demise on its island hideouts is mainly due to military pressure. The Philippine armed forces has gradually built up its troop numbers on Sulu in recent years, and by 2022 had a force of 4,500 soldiers—the entire 11th Infantry Division—deployed to the province. This cohort consists of experienced fighters that have been reassigned from other battalions. The division is based in Jolo and has operational responsibility for combating the threat from Abu Sayyaf across the entire Sulu archipelago—which also encompasses the island provinces of Basilan to the east and Tawi-Tawi to the west. Philippine forces carry-out ground raids and have launched regular aerial bombardments which have killed scores of militants hiding out in Sulu’s mountainous and thickly-forested interior.

Malaysia’s supporting role

Malaysia’s Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) has also played its part, imposing a nightly curfew for civilian boats in the waters of the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZ) to deny Abu Sayyaf targets for kidnapping, while leaving any militant vessels that venture into the area after dusk clearly identifiable. The heavily-policed ESSZ stretches along 1,457km of coast, and covers 58,420km2 of sea area and 32,158km2 of land area. Malaysian authorities have sought to prevent the jungles of Sabah becoming a hiding place or a base for Abu Sayyaf militants to launch kidnappings-at-sea—with seven such plots thwarted since the start of 2020. Last May, an Abu Sayyaf cell found to have set up camp in Sabah was dismantled—eight militants, all Filipino nationals, were captured by ESSCOM troops in the town of Beaufort, before another five militants wielding firearms and machetes were shot dead in a firefight when Malaysian troops discovered makeshift dwellings in a nearby mangrove swamp.

Malaysia plans to strengthen its defences along the coast to prevent future incursions. Last year it announced plans for two new control posts in Kuala Meruap and Siguntur, and a maritime forward operations base on Tambisan island, which has seen several past kidnappings off its coast. ESSCOM commander Ahmad Faud Othman has also requested another six surveillance aircraft and 35 radar-equipped patrol boats from the Malaysian government. Joint trilateral naval and air patrols carried-out in the Sulu Sea by Malaysian, Philippine and Indonesian ships and planes will also be intensified after an agreement between the respective defence ministers at a recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Peace in the Bangsamoro?

Military might aside, the local political context in Mindanao also helps explain Abu Sayyaf’s decline. The self-governed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was inaugurated in 2019 and precipitated a sharp reduction in violence. The two oldest Moro separatist groups in the region—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)—have both laid down arms and committed to politics, setting up political parties to contest local elections. The democratic governance structures of the BARMM, led by MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, have brought stability, and retain the support of Muslims who voted en masse for the region’s formation.

With the 40,000 rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front disarming, only Abu Sayyaf and a few other radical Islamist groups are left fighting. (Image Source: Geneva Call)

As a result, Islamist militant groups allied with Abu Sayyaf on mainland Mindanao are also suffering. In Lanao, Faharudin Hadji Satar (alias Abu Zacaria), the supposed “emir” of Islamic State in Southeast Asia, leads just 60-70 remaining fighters of the Maute Group, while the extreme Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters are hiding-out in ever-smaller numbers in the marshlands of central Maguindanao. Having rapidly lost public support since the BARMM was inaugurated, these groups have been under constant aerial bombardment by the military and now operate only in small, geographically-isolated pockets of territory, unable to carry-out bombings and sieges of major cities like they did previously.

Despite their near capitulation, these remaining Islamist fighters should not be written off just yet. Abu Sayyaf poses a particular threat. While foreign fighters are unable to join and overseas funding has been extinguished, the local element remains a problem due to the unique history of the islands the militants call home. A lower proportion of residents in Sulu—which was once the revered centre of a pre-colonial Islamic sultanate existing from 1415 until the 1900s—voted for the BARMM than in any of its other four component provinces. The archipelago is also struggling to reap the rewards of the BARMM, with Sulu and Basilan remaining the poorest provinces in the Philippines—the poverty rate in Sulu is 71.9% compared to the BARMM average of 39.4%, giving separatism a lingering pull.

Yet Abu Sayyaf is at its lowest ebb since its formation as a radical splinter of the MNLF in the early-1990s. After thirty years of militancy, the Philippine military has its best opportunity yet to end the violence in the Sulu archipelago, and with the help of the BARMM, push Abu Sayyaf to the margins.

A version of this article was first published on Asia Sentinel.

Deciphering the Jihadist Threat to the Philippines’ Moro Peace Process

Michael HartLeave a comment

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR), ratified in a public vote in early-2019, lends greater autonomy to Moro Muslims in western Mindanao (Image Source: Philippine News Agency).

In the impoverished west of the Philippines’ conflict-afflicted southern island of Mindanao, residents voted earlier this year to approve a landmark peace deal which it is hoped will signal an end to one of Southeast Asia’s bloodiest and most intractable insurgencies. Since the early-1970s, separatists have waged a decades-long armed campaign against the central government in Manila in pursuit of either full independence or greater political autonomy for the region’s oppressed Moro Muslim population. After failed peace agreements and false dawns in 1976, 1989 and 1996, the past year has seen major progress.

July 2018 witnessed the signing of an historic peace accord between the government of President Rodrigo Duterte and Mindanao’s largest Muslim insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The deal – known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) – provided the legislation needed to create a new self-governing region to replace the flawed Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which was established in 1989. A public vote in all areas set to form part of the new political entity was held across two days in January and February, with a majority needed to ratify the BOL in each jurisdiction. Turnout exceeded 85% as residents voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposed new region, which will be called the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

In the five existing ARMM provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, a combined total of 1.54m people voted in favour while just 198,000 voted against. After polling closed in non-ARMM areas, it emerged that Cotabato city had also voted to join the BARMM and will become its seat of government. While Isabela city voted against, more than twenty villages in North Cotabato province voted in favour to ensure the BARMM will be larger and more populous than its predecessor.

Yet despite hopes for peace rising after voters rubber-stamped the creation of the BARMM, Duterte has kept Mindanao under martial law in an attempt to tackle the lingering threat from ISIS-affiliated groups active in the provinces set to form the new region. Martial law has remained in place since the siege of Marawi erupted in May 2017, when jihadists from the Maute Group (MG), Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and Ansar Khalifah Philippines (AKP) joined forces to take-over the city. In spite of ongoing peace efforts, these radical elements have refused to relent.

Moro Muslims have been present in western Mindanao since the arrival of Arab traders in the Sulu islands in the 1300s, and have since fought uprisings against Spanish and US colonialists, and later the modern-day Philippine state. The Moros’ have long suffered cultural and political marginalization, and their communities rank among the poorest in the country, with the poverty rate in the ARMM at 59%.

The 30-000 strong MILF long-ago dropped their demand for full independence in favour of autonomy. The last few decades have seen episodes of violence despite a series of past peace agreements having been signed; none of which have managed to quell the insurgency in its entirety. There is now real optimism on both sides that the proposed Bangsamoro region may represent a genuine path to peace.

The new jurisdiction will have its own 80-member elected parliament able to enact laws, headed by a chief minister. The region will receive 75% of taxes collected within its territory, while benefiting from central government grants and improved access to natural resource revenues. Rebel leaders are also hopeful the new region will be a significant improvement on the ARMM, which has been associated with corruption and criticized for constituting autonomy in name only. The government and the MILF campaigned side-by-side for a ‘yes’ vote and have pledged to work together to implement the BOL.

The new Bangsamoro region is to be led during a three year transition period by Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim (Image Source: Philippine News Agency).

While the government and the MILF have pursued peace, several ISIS-aligned groups have remained active in Mindanao. The main protagonists of the Marawi siege, the ASG and the Mautes, are still alive despite having suffered heavy losses during the conflict. The ASG has reverted to launching attacks in its remote island lairs of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, while the Mautes are still thought to be recruiting in Lanao del Sur despite the group’s leader, Abu Dar, being killed in a recent army offensive. The BIFF is the strongest jihadi group in the region, with around 400 fighters in the provinces of Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat. The AKP operates further south in Sarangani and South Cotabato.

These groups have committed a series of high-profile attacks aimed at disrupting the peace process. Just five days after the BOL was inked last July, a Moroccan suicide bomber with ties to the ASG detonated his device at an army checkpoint near Lamitan city, killing 11 people. Local police said his intended target was a school parade taking place in the city centre. BIFF bombings targeted the Sultan Kudarat town of Isulan on 28 August and 2 September, killing five and injuring 49 civilians. In mid-September a bomb planted by the AKP wounded seven people in General Santos city. A blast blamed on the BIFF struck a shopping mall in Cotabato city on 31 December, leaving another two dead and 34 injured. The post-BOL spike in IED attacks in late-2018 followed a stark warning from BIFF figurehead Abu Misri Mama: ‘we are not in favour of autonomy [and will] continue to fight for independence.’

Attacks have continued into 2019. On 27 January – timed to wreak maximum havoc between the two BOL polling days scheduled for 21 January and 6 February – twin explosions tore through a packed cathedral in Jolo, killing 22 worshippers. The attack, carried out by ISIS-aligned ASG militants, served as a reminder that jihadist groups remain intent on shattering the southern Philippines’ fragile peace.

ISIS-affiliated militants have also regularly clashed with government soldiers on the battlefield, with fighting most intense in rural areas of western Mindanao. Last year witnessed 119 clashes linked to Moro and Islamist groups on mainland Mindanao, with at least 83 involving the BIFF. While the MILF engaged only in small-scale clan disputes between rival factions at the local level, clashes between BIFF factions and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) led to the death of 173 militants and 21 government soldiers. The BIFF is most active in Maguindanao, the site of 70 clashes in 2018, and North Cotabato, which saw 24 encounters. The Mautes have engaged in sporadic fighting with the army in Lanao del Sur, while the AKP has initiated several gun battles in Sarangani and South Cotabato. At least 91,485 people were displaced last year in Mindanao as a result of clashes involving ISIS-linked groups.

The BIFF stronghold of Maguindanao also proved to be the epicentre of a rising IED threat, seeing 19 attacks, which mostly targeted military and Philippine National Police (PNP) vehicles by the roadside.

Meanwhile in its remote island hideouts of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, the ASG engaged in 63 armed clashes with the military during 2018, resulting in 161 fatalities and displacing at least 5,000 civilians.

The 30,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front has pledged to disband and disarm its insurgent force before transitioning into a political party and contesting elections (Image Source: PCOO).

These figures demonstrate that ISIS-aligned groups are still active and pose a threat to stability in the region. Sustained BIFF-AFP clashes continue to take place, while IED blasts have targeted both state security personnel and civilians. However, the threat has reduced since the militants’ attempt to take-over Marawi city was extinguished in October 2017. In the build-up to the siege, the four ISIS-affiliated groups were able to join forces and operate relatively freely in light of alleged AFP intelligence failures. The army was taken aback by the militants’ combined strength and level of co-ordination, and was vastly under-prepared for a prolonged urban siege characterized by street battles and enemy sniper fire.

Post-Marawi, the AFP’s awareness and posture has altered considerably. Remnants of the four ISIS-aligned groups have been weakened by sustained offensives under martial law, while the infiltration of foreign fighters from Indonesia and Malaysia has slowed due to trilateral naval patrols carried-out in the Sulu Sea by the Philippines and its two nearest neighbours. Mindanao’s ISIS-aligned groups are now separated geographically, and will struggle to join ranks to launch a combined assault as they did in Marawi. While a repeat can’t be ruled out, it is unlikely in the current state of heightened vigilance.

With the BARMM ratified, Duterte is now hoping to crush these groups under martial law. Yet despite the progress made in the past year, barriers to peace remain. A lengthy transition awaits as the MILF transforms into a political party ahead of elections to the new regional parliament due by 2022. The demobilisation of the MILF may also prove difficult. The MILF’s 30,000 fighters will likely find it harder to reintegrate back into society than senior MILF leaders who have joined the BARMM’s transitional administration. Political leadership itself will be an arduous task. MILF leaders have sought to prepare early by visiting former rebel chiefs in Indonesia’s Aceh province to learn about the implementation of a similar peace accord there over the past decade. In Aceh, an autonomous settlement addressing grievances of Muslim insurgent groups in exchange for disarmament has largely held firm since 2005.

Authorities hope the peace accord will dent recruitment for ISIS-affiliated groups in Mindanao, who joined forces to occupy Marawi city for five months in 2017 (Image Source: Mark Jhomel).

On Mindanao, the presence of Jihadi groups makes a replication of Aceh’s peace gains more uncertain. Military intelligence reports suggest foreign jihadists from the pre-Marawi influx are still fighting with the BIFF, while the Mautes are alleged to be recruiting in Lanao del Sur to bolster their depleted ranks. Further clashes with the AFP are likely throughout 2019, although under the strain of martial law ISIS-linked groups may further splinter, turn to guerrilla-style tactics and make greater use of explosives.

The key test for a lasting peace in Mindanao will be whether the hearts and minds of Moro Muslims can be won over by the new autonomous region, which promises to reduce poverty and spark more equitable development. Should genuine autonomy prevail and political stability take hold, the brazen attempt by ISIS to hijack the Moros’ five-decade separatist campaign may yet prove to be short-lived.

This article was first published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The statistics in this article are sourced from the institute’s Armed Conflict Database (ACD), which collects data and analyses key trends in all active conflicts worldwide.