Next Stop Mindanao

By Johanna McGeary

Hunting terrorists on Basilan Island is a punishing game of hide-and-seek, as any Philippine soldier can tell you. The 5,000 Philippine troops on Basilan are looking for the last 80 or so heavily armed members of the Muslim rebel gang known as Abu Sayyaf (meaning "Bearer of the Sword"), who are on the run with three hostages in tow somewhere inside a 30-sq.-mi. patch. Stalking the rebels in jungle so dense that no light shines through the canopy of foliage, along jagged ridges often shrouded in fog, is like fighting in a dark closet with sunglasses on. The enemy are masters of the hit-and-run ambush, and might be lurking behind every curtain of vines, every thicket or frond.

Welcome to the next front in the global war against terror. Starting last week U.S. soldiers began arriving in the troubled southern province of Mindanao to hunt shoulder to shoulder with the frustrated Philippine soldiers who have been scouring the area for the past eight months. In theory, the 650 U.S. G.I.s, including 160 special forces, are being sent to teach the local troops better ways to search out and destroy Abu Sayyaf, a group that officials say has had ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. In practice, armed with sophisticated munitions and authorized to fire only in self-defense, the Americans seem likely to do everything short of direct combat attacks to help rid the Philippines of this scourge.

With al-Qaeda cells lurking in at least 50 countries around the world, why bring the battle to the Philippines? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last week that Abu Sayyaf is linked to al-Qaeda, "no question," but most officials in Manila consider it more a band of local thugs than a worldwide terrorism threat. Still, the group's brutal record of kidnapping--and beheading--foreigners as well as Filipinos (close to 100 murdered since 1991) makes it a legitimate target. The fact that Abu Sayyaf still holds hostage U.S. missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, said Rumsfeld, only "adds a dimension to our interest."

Yet the underlying purposes of this operation may go beyond the fate of Abu Sayyaf. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has shrewdly used the terrorism threat to dip into Washington's honey jar, coming away with $100 million in military aid and substantial additions to her depleted arsenal. Her country has largely been cut off from military assistance since Manila kicked the U.S. out of its two major South Asian bases in 1991. The Bush Administration was eager to regain a military foothold there. Last November, when Arroyo visited Washington, the President offered to send U.S. combat troops to join the Abu Sayyaf chase--despite a clause in the Philippine constitution prohibiting foreigners from fighting on the nation's soil. But a visiting-forces agreement signed in 1999 allows U.S. troops to join in military exercises.

The gravest terrorism threat may come less from Mindanao than from Manila, thought to be a prime hideaway for undetected al-Qaeda cells scattered throughout Southeast Asia. For several months Manila provided houseroom for Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Only last week Philippine police arrested three men suspected of plotting with an al-Qaeda ring recently broken up in Singapore. Sleepers like these, with a taste for anti-American action, trained and financed by al-Qaeda, could be part of a regional terrorism fraternity operating under the banner of Jemaah Islamia, which seeks to knit renegade segments of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia into a radical Islamic state in the South China Sea.

Sending in G.I.s to help disband Abu Sayyaf would deprive these cells of a useful bit of real estate. But it wouldn't eradicate the international danger they pose. Rooting them out is a job for the undercover boys. The FBI has beefed up its Manila office because, says an official, "the threat level is going up." It is worried that Asians might step in as suicide bombers now that airport security is targeting Arabs. And the 650 incoming G.I.s could provide nice cover for other covert operatives, such as CIA paramilitaries. "As we've said all along, what you don't see us doing in the war on terrorism," says a Pentagon official, "is as important as what you will see."

For now, the visible action will concentrate on Abu Sayyaf as American soldiers join the patrols on Basilan Island. They are on a slippery slope between training and fighting. Their very presence makes them a target for terrorists and for the local Muslim populace, which has been bitterly anti-American since colonial times. Though they are called advisers, the Americans will be going on risky missions deep into the jungle. "You're coming as close as you can to direct combat when you go out on patrol," says Michael Vickers, a former Green Beret who is an analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Sometimes even if you're trying to stay out of combat, the fighting is brought to you." That is exactly how the U.S. found itself mired in Vietnam.

Under the top-gun command of Air Force Brigadier General Donald Wurster, head of all special operations in the Pacific, Army special forces, backed by commandos from other services, were setting up quarters last week for a 6- to 12-month stay at a camp on Mindanao, just a boat ride across the narrow strait from Basilan. Philippine counterparts are already taking delivery of U.S. equipment, including a C-130 cargo plane and eight Huey helicopters.

The formal job of the G.I.s is to teach 1,200 Philippine soldiers the latest in antiterrorist tactics and intelligence-gathering techniques. (The irony of the mission, coming after the U.S. failed to nab top terrorists in Afghanistan, goes unmentioned by the Pentagon.) Manila's brass complain that Abu Sayyaf has eluded capture because government forces get lousy information about the enemy's whereabouts. U.S. trainers will bring along sophisticated sensors and tracking devices to help pinpoint Abu Sayyaf's locations. In particular, they intend to improve the Philippine army's ability to hunt at night. The Pentagon refuses to explain what other actions the Americans might undertake, but Vickers and sources in Manila suspect that the special forces will attempt to rescue the American hostages. "If we could find them, I think we'd do it," says Vickers.

All this firepower seems a bit heavy just to take out the fading Abu Sayyaf. Some Bush officials last week puffed them as one of the world's most vile and violent Islamist terrorism clans. In reality, says a Pentagon aide, "they're more like the Bloods and the Crips than al-Qaeda and the Taliban." Arroyo has said Abu Sayyaf appears to have only a few old "traces of a relationship" with al-Qaeda.

The group first picked up steam in 1991 as an offshoot of a larger Muslim liberation organization that has been fighting for a separate Islamic state since the U.S. ended its occupation of the Philippines in 1946. Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Janjalani heard the call of Muslim nationalism and joined the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden. At war's end Janjalani brought his new skills home with a message of violent Islamic rebellion that resonated among the Muslim minority, 5% of a largely Roman Catholic country.

From there, though, the ties to al-Qaeda grow tenuous. Abu Sayyaf is said to have bankrolled its initial gun purchases through the dubious charities of Philippine-based Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden's brother-in-law. Khalifa had links to another Philippine bin Laden agent, Abdul Hakim Murad, who was arrested in 1995 for plotting to kill Pope John Paul II and for planning, with roommate Ramzi Yousef, to blow up 12 U.S. airliners simultaneously. Yousef used to pay the occasional call on his old mujahedin pal Janjalani.

But Abu Sayyaf never graduated to al-Qaeda-style international schemes. The organization's primary tactic was bombing local Christians, raiding military posts and pulling off for-profit kidnappings. Extortion and ransom have been paying its way for years. After Janjalani was killed in a firefight in 1998, the group fragmented into two factions, one headed by his brother Khaddafy Janjalani and based in Basilan, the other under the nominal leadership of one "Commander Robot," headquartered on Jolo Island. In April 2000 the Robot gang stormed a Malaysian dive resort and made off with 21 hostages, including 19 foreigners. The group eventually bartered them for $25 million, paid by Libya in a bid for Western goodwill. The ransom was spent on fresh recruits and high-tech weapons. A year later, members of the Basilan faction snatched 20 captives from a Philippine beach hotel. That batch included the U.S. missionaries and a third American, Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded in June, said Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya, as a "gift" for President Arroyo.

Since becoming President in 2001, Arroyo has waged an aggressive but often inept campaign against Abu Sayyaf. Some also charge that pervasive corruption makes the army soft on the rebels. Even so, army firefights have pruned the group--which once held the allegiance of perhaps 2,000 Muslims, including 200 hard-core fighters--to about 80 devotees, who have had to split into two constantly traveling units.

Plenty of opposition politicians and ordinary Filipinos think Arroyo is being too welcoming to U.S. troops. Senior Filipino lawmakers question the legality of an "exercise" that brushes close to the constitutional ban on foreign combat and are worried that it is the first step toward re-establishing U.S. bases. Some analysts charge Arroyo with exaggerating Abu Sayyaf's strength in order to grab more American aid. And Muslim leaders in the southern zone fear the U.S. presence will reactivate mainstream separatist outfits.

But the Bush Administration betrays no doubt. "If we have to go into 15 more countries," said Rumsfeld, "we ought to do it to deal with terrorism." Abu Sayyaf may be a mere sideshow, but if the U.S. isn't yet ready to take on state sponsors of terrorism, then operations like this one may be the next best way to show the war isn't over.

--Reported by Nelly Sindayen/Basilan, Mark Thompson/Washington and Phil Zabriskie/Manila

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Basilan, Mark Thompson/Washington and Phil Zabriskie/Manila