JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
OTHER ABU SAYYAF STORIES
http://ift.tt/1GkYrTC
OBAMA BIN LADEN HOAX
http://ift.tt/1K718uk
UPDATE MAY 19,2015-12:00AM
IT SEEMS THAT ABU SAYYAF IS HIS REAL NAME.BECAUSE BACK IN 2001-ABU SAYYAF WAS ACCUSED OF BLUFFING TO KILL TO HOSTAGES FROM AMERICA.AND HE TRYED AND PROBABLY DID GET MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OUT OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.SO SAYYAF HAS BEEN AROUND AT LEAST SINCE 2001.BACK IN 2001 ABU SAYYAF WAS THE LEADER OF A GROUP CALLED ABU SAYYAF REBELS.BY THE SOUNDS OF IT.ABU SAYYAF WAS AN AL-QUIDA REBEL GROUP.SO HE WAS EITHER FIGHTER FOR AMERICA AGAINST BIN LADEN BACK IN 2001.OR HE WAS A BIN LADEN PUPPET FIGHTING AGAINST AMERICA.AND SAYYAF HAD A SPOKSMAN BY THE NAME OF ABU SABAYA.ABU SAYYAF IS JUST THE ISLAMIC GROUP NAME.SO ABU SAYYAF IS EITHER THE LEADER OF ABU SAYYAF.OR HE DOES HAVE A DIFFERENT NAME.THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP WAS CONNECTED TO OSAMA BIN LADEN.WE HAVE ANOTHER BIN LADEN CONNECTION WITH THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP.IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF THE WIFE WAS THE BIG LEADER IN THIS HOSTAGE-SO CALLED OIL AND GAS ISIS LEADER GROUP.IT SOUNDS LIKE TO ME THAT THE ABU SAYYAF GROUP IS MORE OF A HOSTAGE GROUP-THEN AN OIL AND GAS LEADER.THERE CLEARLY IS A BIN LADEN CONNECTION TO THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP. OBAMA IS PULLING ANOTHER BIN LADEN SCAM-I AM CONVINCED NOW BY THE TWO 2001 STORIES I GOT HERE.
U.S. to question Islamic State leader's wife on hostages, officials say-Mon May 18, 2015 2:23pm EDT-By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The captured wife of a senior Islamic State leader who was killed in a weekend raid will face questions over what she and her husband knew about the group's treatment of hostages, including Americans, U.S. officials said.The U.S. government believes the leader, Abu Sayyaf, was involved in handling foreign hostages, including Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker who was killed in February, U.S. security and law enforcement officials said.The White House said on Saturday that U.S. military personnel based in Iraq had carried out a raid in eastern Syria aimed at capturing Abu Sayyaf and his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf.Umm Sayyaf was captured by U.S. forces, but Abu Sayyaf was killed after "he engaged U.S. forces," the White House said.U.S. commandos freed a Yazidi woman who appeared to have been "held as a slave" by Abu Sayyaf and his wife.U.S. law enforcement and security officials said that Umm Sayyaf would likely be questioned by members of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), an interagency unit created after President Barack Obama closed down a CIA counter-terrorism program widely criticized for its use of torture.The U.S. officials said they believed Abu Sayyaf had some direct interaction with Mueller and other hostages although they said his wife's role would likely have been limited.
A representative for Mueller's family had no comment.U.S. officials and a source close to hostage families said Islamic State militants were still believed to be holding other Westerners hostage, including British journalist John Cantlie, but not any Americans.(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
http://ift.tt/1GkYrTE Says Rebel Execution Claim a Bluff-(IslamWeb) Reuters-mar 23,2001
Philippines Says Rebel Execution Claim a Bluff-Guillermo Sobero, a U.S. citizen being held hostage in the Philippines, apparently traveled there secretly with a girlfriend last month unbeknownst to his estranged wife, police said June 13, 2001. Muslim rebels holding Sobero along with two other U.S. citizens and 17 Filipinos, said Tuesday they had executed him but government officials dismissed the claim as a bluff. Sobero is pictured in this family photograph taken earlier this year.
ISABELA, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pledged no let-up in military action against Muslim rebels on Wednesday as military leaders dismissed as a bluff their claim to have beheaded a U.S. hostage.Troops and the Abu Sayyaf rebels fought a brief gunbattle near Tipo-Tipo town on the southern island of Basilan early on Wednesday, one day after two bodies were found in the area.But officials identified both bodies as those of local men and not of Guillermo Sobero, one of three Americans seized in May whose execution the rebels announced on Tuesday.``The Abu Sayyaf is a plague on our race, a curse to their religion,'' Arroyo, an admirer of Britain's ``Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher, told a news conference.``They live by the draconian code of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We have responded in kind, we will continue to meet fire with fire and more.''As troops combed Basilan for the rebels and more than two dozen U.S. and Filipino hostages, Arroyo warned residents on the island against helping the rebels.Toughening the government stance, she said that there would be no negotiations with the rebels through a Malaysian negotiator, as the government had agreed on Sunday following earlier threats to execute the three American hostages.Asked about such talks, she replied: ``That's academic, because Abu Sabaya already said no more negotiations.''Military spokesmen dismissed or played down Tuesday's execution announcement by Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya.``There is no truth to what Sabaya claimed,'' Colonel Danilo Servando said. ``We consider it as a bluff of Sabaya.''
HOPEFUL
Chief military spokesman Brigadier-General Edilberto Adan echoed that line in the capital Manila. ``In the past there have been bluffs and he (Sabaya) did not carry out what he said he would do. It is possible Mr. Sobero is still alive. We are hopeful that he is still alive,'' he told a news conference.Officials on Basilan, 900 km (550 miles) south of Manila, told reporters that one of the dead men was a local Muslim leader, Mahaymin Latip, who had gone to the rebel camp at the weekend to plead for the release of some of the hostages.The rebels, enraged by talk that villagers were providing the military with information of their whereabouts, beheaded Latip and left his body to be found, they added.The second body belonged to another Filipino man, they said.The rebels seized Sobero, an American missionary couple and 17 Filipinos from a beach resort near Palawan island on May 27. After escapes, rescues and fresh seizures, they now hold more than two dozen hostages, all but three of them Filipinos.A former rebel leader said the Abu Sayyaf claim could be an attempt to sow confusion. ``In the past, there have been beheadings but also, on a few occasions, threats like this turned out to be untrue,'' Farouk Hussein told Reuters in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. ``I hope this is the case now.''Hussein, a member of the Moro National Liberation Force which has signed a peace deal with the government, has been involved in hostage negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf previously but said he had not been invited to do so this time.``You are dealing with a totalitarian kind of people. Some of them are claiming to have political goals, some are being branded as pure and simple bandits or kidnap-for-ransom groups,'' he said. ''From my little experience of negotiating with them, I think there is some wisdom in talking to them.''The Abu Sayyaf, dismissed by the government as bandits interested only in ransom money, says it is fighting for Muslim self-rule in the south of the Roman Catholic Philippines. The group has not put forward any demands for the release of hostages, except to insist on the Malaysian negotiator.In the past, the Abu Sayyaf has asked for -- and reportedly received -- millions of dollars in ransom.Sobero, 40, is from Corona, California. Missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham are from Wichita, Kansas.
To Catch a Terrorist-Mark Bowden, author of "Jihadists in Paradise," on hunting down the story of Abu Sabaya.- Justine Isola March 2007 Issue From the issue:
Jihadists in Paradise
A kidnapping at a Philippine resort triggered a yearlong hunt for pirate terrorists and their American hostages. A behind-the-scenes tale of intrigue, spycraft, and betrayal. By Mark Bowden
On May 27, 2001, a small militant Islamist group known as the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 vacationers and staffers from a resort on an island in the Southern Philippines. Their hope was to pressure the Philippine government into granting Muslim Filipinos an independent state. Among the hostages were three Americans; two of them, a Baptist missionary couple named Martin and Gracia Burnham, ended up spending more than a year in captivity in the jungle. In his March cover story, “Jihadists in Paradise” Mark Bowden chronicles the hostages’ ordeal and the ultimately successful efforts of the Philippine military—aided by American intelligence—to eliminate the group’s leading figure.Although the Philippine government had long considered the Abu Sayyaf Group a threat, the United States government was fairly indifferent to their presence—even after the three American citizens were taken hostage. The press, too, reacted somewhat apathetically, leaving the public for the most part uninformed. The day of the kidnappings, the Associated Press reported tersely, “American tourists among hostages taken from Philippine resort.” Many major U.S. newspapers failed to cover the story at all, or, if they did, their editors gave it short shrift. The Washington Post, for example, buried the story on page 12A. For several months after the kidnappings, the only New York Times mention of the Burnhams was in short clips pulled from the AP or Reuters.But just a few months later, Bowden notes, after Islamic terrorists struck dramatically inside the United States on 9/11, “everything changed. No longer was Abu Sayyaf just an obscure group of kidnappers; it was now a regional arm of the international Islamist menace.” Journalists began to explore links between the Abu Sayyaf and Osama bin Laden, and the small islands in the Southern Philippines known as Abu Sayyaf territory began to come into focus for many Americans. Today, one can easily pull up think-tank profiles of the group, and the Abu Sayyaf Group is cited on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.In “Jihadists in Paradise,” Bowden calls attention to the evolving American response to militant Islamist terrorism and explores the psychology and strategies of a group seeking to become a part of the global jihad. Bowden asks his readers to question our assumptions about the endurance of religiously motivated terrorism and points to the U.S. and Philippine militaries’ handling of this episode as a model for combating militant Islamic terrorism in the future:Eliminating [Aldam Tilao, the group’s leading figure and spokesperson] was a small, early success in what the Bush administration calls the “global war on terror,” but in the shadow of efforts like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it went largely unnoticed. As a model for the long-term fight against militant Islam, however, the hunt for Tilao is better than either of those larger engagements. Because the enemy consists of small cells operating independently all over the globe, success depends on local intelligence and American assistance subtle enough to avoid charges of imperialism or meddling, charges that often provoke a backlash and feed the movement.This story, which engagingly details everything from the hostages’ practice of licking candy wrappers clean when hunger pangs were particularly intense to the high-tech surveillance gizmos the U.S. and Philippine militaries employed, sheds useful light on how the U.S. can cooperate with local forces and enters into a larger conversation about the future of the U.S. armed forces.Mark Bowden is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. We spoke by telephone on January 19.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Do the members of the Philippine military share this perspective? In your piece, you suggest that Colonel Sabban and Captain Aragones felt they had a good relationship with the American military and the CIA.
Yes. They were delighted with our support. They would be the first to say that they would not have succeeded as readily if they didn’t have the help from the CIA and from American military intelligence.
It’s sobering that two of the American hostages were killed. Could things have turned out differently? Was the mission a success from your perspective?
It was a great success from the perspective of crushing Abu Sayyaf. It was only a mixed success in terms of rescuing hostages. This story illustrates not only how successful the United States can be when working through indigenous forces, but also some of the dangers of doing that. I believe that the hostages could have been rescued months, months earlier than Gracia was rescued, and that they could have been rescued without killing Martin if some of the egos and competition within the various Philippine military units had been set aside —and if people had been making decisions strictly on the basis of what would be the most effective way to proceed.
I do believe that the United States military probably has a higher degree of discipline in that regard than what you saw in the Philippines. There are also of course moral and legal issues raised by the willingness of the Philippine marines basically to assassinate people in the course of the investigation. The United States is complicit in that to an extent, and that’s a very serious problem we have to cope with in such situations. We can be very effective, but we also have to give up control to an extent that can endanger the success of the mission.
How did the decision of the CIA not to share certain information with marine intelligence play into this? Was this a good decision? Should we have taken more direct steps to assist the Philippine forces?
I think the division of opinion in Washington over how to proceed is an illustration of the complexity of this problem. The fact that one agency is willing to do something and the other is not says to me that we don’t have a clear enough sense of policy and direction to dictate a uniform response. In the case of Abu Sabaya, in my opinion the CIA should have been able to share lethal information [that could lead to a target’s death] as it pertained to the hostage takers, the kidnappers themselves. I don’t see the logic of the CIA’s decision not to share that kind of information, and I think it proceeded mostly from a bureaucratic tendency to protect the agency’s methods.
This is foolish. The idea that we were somehow going to be giving our capabilities away to the Philippine marines and that this would somehow compromise us doesn’t make any sense at all. A scene in the story that got cut, unfortunately, because of length described the U.S. response when Colonel Sabban asked the CIA to provide him with a satellite phone. They originally provided him with a government-issue suitcase-size phone. And he said, “What’s this?” All he wanted was the kind of phone you can buy at Circuit City, which is ten times more sophisticated and more effective and can fit in your pocket. He was mortified that this was the best the United States had to offer. So this notion —particularly when you’re working in Southeast Asia —that the United States is so far advanced technologically that we have capabilities that no one else knows about —is just ludicrous. In fact, they’re ahead of us in most cases. They don’t have the means to actually put a satellite into orbit and employ global positioning, but they certainly are aware of the capabilities of global positioning. I think the CIA’s decision not to share this information didn’t make any sense at all.
Did some of the disagreement or uncertainties in Washington have to do with the U.S.’s attitude toward the Abu Sayyaf? Was the decision to pursue the group mainly symbolic—We have no tolerance for terrorists—or were they really perceived as a large-scale threat?
I think they were perceived as a large threat after 9/11. In general, we as a country have probably overestimated the level of threat posed by Islamists because 9/11 was such a spectacular success and so far beyond even the expectations of the people who did it. It led to speculation that their capability was even greater than that. In fact, 9/11 was far off the scale of what they’re actually capable of doing. We are, in my opinion, understandably overreacting. The thugs wandering around Basilan in the Southern Philippines were basically more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight than a serious threat to the civilized world. But they’re a very ugly, terrible people, and we’re right to go after them. I think that the potential in the present world climate for them to become a more serious threat is definitely there, which is why I favor the low-key approach that we see in the story. This approach isn’t going after a flea with a sledge hammer. It’s using power in the way that a judo master uses it—a minimum application of force to accomplish the purpose you want.
One thing I noticed when reading the piece was that the excerpts from Tilao’s radio messages seem fairly devoid of any actual religious fervor or of any pointed political message. Do you think that Abu Sayyaf has an authentic ideological cause or any real grievances?
Yes, I do think that there are legitimate political differences and concern about levels of funding. I didn’t explore this heavily, but clearly the movement in the Southern Philippines would not have lasted for generations and gone through all these permutations if there were not some legitimate underlying political grievances. But the religious aspect is part of what I consider to be—the word “fad” doesn’t seem serious enough—a phase or trend of the global jihad idea, which I don’t personally believe will last very long. Terrorism will be with us forever, but the global jihad is a passing phenomenon.
Could you talk a little bit more about your understanding of the emergence of the Abu Sayyaf? How did what seemed to be primarily a secular, socialist cause, became a religiously motivated jihad? To what extent was the Abu Sayyaf Group connected to a broader militant Islamic cause?
They aspired to join the global jihad, which was a concept that Osama bin Laden has successfully sold to portions of the world. The truth of it is that there is no global al-Qaeda. There is no global organization plotting the destruction of Western society. What you have is what we see in the Philippines: a small, supposedly Islamist movement that saw an opportunity to hitch its star to the wagon.
You note that Tilao wanted Martin Burnham to identify his kidnappers as “the Osama bin Laden group.”
Bin Laden has been very, very successful in creating an umbrella, a rhetorical umbrella, for a lot of disparate groups, all of them Islamist. They believe they are part of something much bigger than their own local struggle. And that’s a major accomplishment. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that because they wish to be called the Osama bin Laden group they’re somehow taking orders from Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri or anybody else. Sabaya was a Filipino first and last. He had a little bit of experience in the Middle East and saw an opportunity to make himself appear to be more important than he really was.
As far as you know did al-Qaeda ever acknowledge the Abu Sayyaf?
I don’t know. I think they have. If not them then possibly Jemaah Islamiya, a very dangerous group in Southeast Asia that is responsible for bombings in Bali. So to that extent there is a loose linkage, but it’s much more of a franchise than a branch.
I can see the value of mutually acknowledging each other without actually sending orders back and forth or coordinating.
I don’t believe that Tilao or Khaddafy Janjalani ever met with Khalid Sheik Mohammed or any of the other organizational leaders of al-Qadea, but they represented an aspiring faction in Southeast Asia. And given the presence of a very large, restive Islamist community in the Southern Philippines, it had the potential to become a serious threat to the Philippines. That alone made the country very concerned. Our concern joined with theirs after 9/11 when we made it our business to target these small groups wherever we found them.
The Abu Sayyaf seems to have lost its prominence. I recently read that another member of the Abu Sayyaf had been killed.
Yes, someone named Abu Solaiman, who became a spokesman for the group when Tilao was killed. He was apparently involved with the group when they kidnapped the Burnhams. He was killed; Khadaffy Janjalani is also believed to have been killed. Movements like these that adopt violent, militant Islam as their banner are like the Ebola virus. They are terribly frightening because they’re so vicious. But they can’t be effective in the long run because they burn themselves out. The vast majority of people cannot stomach that kind of extremism or that kind of violence. And so they become holy terrors for a brief period of time and then they burn themselves out. They’re either killed or they wander off and try to start living a normal life.
You give the example of Alvin Siglos who might have been the ideal ally but instead became an agent for the Philippine marines.
As I said in the piece, the idea of political violence sounds good until it’s someone you love who gets killed. And then it’s not an abstract idea any more. Then it’s something very real and you begin to realize how horrific the notion of killing someone for a political reason is. It can only stay abstract as long as it doesn’t touch you. In a small community like those islands in the Philippines, it didn’t take long before it touched Alvin Siglos personally.
Do you know if the U.S. is still involved in supporting Philippine efforts to take out Abu Sayyaf members?
Yes. In fact, when I visited Jolo, the little island where General Sabban is stationed, a fairly significant detachment of U.S. Special Forces was there. They weren’t there just to give community pep talks. One of the smart things that our military is doing, and Bob Kaplan has written about this, is we are establishing a presence, a very small presence, of special operators and special forces, throughout the globe —and in some cases in very obscure places because we have an interest in what’s going on there. I think that’s a very low-key but effective way of dealing with these small cells of Islamist terrorists who pop up throughout the world.
Do you think that the Philippines is a good example of what the United States can expect in other parts of the world in terms of the level of cooperation and the talent and capabilities of the local intelligence forces?
Yes, in many places it is a model because these Islamist cells often pose even more of a threat to the local authorities than they do to the United States’ interests or to the world, so it behooves us to work with local authorities even when—and this is not true of the Philippines—even in places where we don’t necessarily have friendly relationships, or where we don’t necessarily even approve of the government. In a war you take your allies where you find them. So within limits I think it may be necessary for us to cooperate with unsavory elements to accomplish a larger goal.
I do think it’s a model for how to proceed. And I think that it’s not something the United States has been very good at throughout our history. We’re a very cocky and very arrogant country militarily. We believe that we have better soldiers and better equipment and better tactics, and our tendency is to ask the locals to stay out of the way. Whereas I think in this war, the smart thing to do is to take a back seat, to offer to help and give up a little control over the operation, but accomplish more by doing so.
Would military exercises be the logical first step if we were working with a country or group that shared a less similar ideology?
I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re necessary. And I don’t think that it was even necessary in the Philippines. The American presence in Southeast Asia and those military exercises serve a larger military purpose than going after al-Qaeda. The presence doesn’t have to be that visible—in fact, in some cases it’s better if it’s less visible.
Do you think other areas would be receptive to U.S. support?
They would be if it served their interest. And in many cases, as I said, the existing authorities are more threatened by these little groups than is the United States. So they would, if approached correctly, welcome American assistance to help find these people.
I understand you ran into Atlantic national correspondent Robert Kaplan in the Philippines while you were reporting this piece.
I should start by noting that when this happened there were only five national correspondents for the Atlantic. It’s hardly a major media outlet covering the world. I traveled initially to Manila and then took a plane down to Zamboanga City and made arrangements to get on a small plane to fly to Jolo, which is one of the more obscure places in the world.I called ahead just to tell Colonel Sabban that I was arriving, and he said, “Oh, do you know Bob Kaplan?” And I said “Yeah,” and he said, “He’s here right now.” And I thought what are the chances of two of us being in Jolo at the same time. We had Southeast Asia covered! Bob was actually leaving Jolo the day that I arrived, and I didn’t see him there, but eventually we hooked up in Zamboanga City and had a nice night out on the town.We seem to have the area covered!
FULL STORY
http://ift.tt/1ETT4Fy
OTHER ABU SAYYAF STORIES
http://ift.tt/1GkYrTC
OBAMA BIN LADEN HOAX
http://ift.tt/1K718uk
UPDATE MAY 19,2015-12:00AM
IT SEEMS THAT ABU SAYYAF IS HIS REAL NAME.BECAUSE BACK IN 2001-ABU SAYYAF WAS ACCUSED OF BLUFFING TO KILL TO HOSTAGES FROM AMERICA.AND HE TRYED AND PROBABLY DID GET MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OUT OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.SO SAYYAF HAS BEEN AROUND AT LEAST SINCE 2001.BACK IN 2001 ABU SAYYAF WAS THE LEADER OF A GROUP CALLED ABU SAYYAF REBELS.BY THE SOUNDS OF IT.ABU SAYYAF WAS AN AL-QUIDA REBEL GROUP.SO HE WAS EITHER FIGHTER FOR AMERICA AGAINST BIN LADEN BACK IN 2001.OR HE WAS A BIN LADEN PUPPET FIGHTING AGAINST AMERICA.AND SAYYAF HAD A SPOKSMAN BY THE NAME OF ABU SABAYA.ABU SAYYAF IS JUST THE ISLAMIC GROUP NAME.SO ABU SAYYAF IS EITHER THE LEADER OF ABU SAYYAF.OR HE DOES HAVE A DIFFERENT NAME.THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP WAS CONNECTED TO OSAMA BIN LADEN.WE HAVE ANOTHER BIN LADEN CONNECTION WITH THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP.IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF THE WIFE WAS THE BIG LEADER IN THIS HOSTAGE-SO CALLED OIL AND GAS ISIS LEADER GROUP.IT SOUNDS LIKE TO ME THAT THE ABU SAYYAF GROUP IS MORE OF A HOSTAGE GROUP-THEN AN OIL AND GAS LEADER.THERE CLEARLY IS A BIN LADEN CONNECTION TO THIS ABU SAYYAF GROUP. OBAMA IS PULLING ANOTHER BIN LADEN SCAM-I AM CONVINCED NOW BY THE TWO 2001 STORIES I GOT HERE.
U.S. to question Islamic State leader's wife on hostages, officials say-Mon May 18, 2015 2:23pm EDT-By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The captured wife of a senior Islamic State leader who was killed in a weekend raid will face questions over what she and her husband knew about the group's treatment of hostages, including Americans, U.S. officials said.The U.S. government believes the leader, Abu Sayyaf, was involved in handling foreign hostages, including Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker who was killed in February, U.S. security and law enforcement officials said.The White House said on Saturday that U.S. military personnel based in Iraq had carried out a raid in eastern Syria aimed at capturing Abu Sayyaf and his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf.Umm Sayyaf was captured by U.S. forces, but Abu Sayyaf was killed after "he engaged U.S. forces," the White House said.U.S. commandos freed a Yazidi woman who appeared to have been "held as a slave" by Abu Sayyaf and his wife.U.S. law enforcement and security officials said that Umm Sayyaf would likely be questioned by members of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), an interagency unit created after President Barack Obama closed down a CIA counter-terrorism program widely criticized for its use of torture.The U.S. officials said they believed Abu Sayyaf had some direct interaction with Mueller and other hostages although they said his wife's role would likely have been limited.
A representative for Mueller's family had no comment.U.S. officials and a source close to hostage families said Islamic State militants were still believed to be holding other Westerners hostage, including British journalist John Cantlie, but not any Americans.(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
http://ift.tt/1GkYrTE Says Rebel Execution Claim a Bluff-(IslamWeb) Reuters-mar 23,2001
Philippines Says Rebel Execution Claim a Bluff-Guillermo Sobero, a U.S. citizen being held hostage in the Philippines, apparently traveled there secretly with a girlfriend last month unbeknownst to his estranged wife, police said June 13, 2001. Muslim rebels holding Sobero along with two other U.S. citizens and 17 Filipinos, said Tuesday they had executed him but government officials dismissed the claim as a bluff. Sobero is pictured in this family photograph taken earlier this year.
ISABELA, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pledged no let-up in military action against Muslim rebels on Wednesday as military leaders dismissed as a bluff their claim to have beheaded a U.S. hostage.Troops and the Abu Sayyaf rebels fought a brief gunbattle near Tipo-Tipo town on the southern island of Basilan early on Wednesday, one day after two bodies were found in the area.But officials identified both bodies as those of local men and not of Guillermo Sobero, one of three Americans seized in May whose execution the rebels announced on Tuesday.``The Abu Sayyaf is a plague on our race, a curse to their religion,'' Arroyo, an admirer of Britain's ``Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher, told a news conference.``They live by the draconian code of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We have responded in kind, we will continue to meet fire with fire and more.''As troops combed Basilan for the rebels and more than two dozen U.S. and Filipino hostages, Arroyo warned residents on the island against helping the rebels.Toughening the government stance, she said that there would be no negotiations with the rebels through a Malaysian negotiator, as the government had agreed on Sunday following earlier threats to execute the three American hostages.Asked about such talks, she replied: ``That's academic, because Abu Sabaya already said no more negotiations.''Military spokesmen dismissed or played down Tuesday's execution announcement by Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya.``There is no truth to what Sabaya claimed,'' Colonel Danilo Servando said. ``We consider it as a bluff of Sabaya.''
HOPEFUL
Chief military spokesman Brigadier-General Edilberto Adan echoed that line in the capital Manila. ``In the past there have been bluffs and he (Sabaya) did not carry out what he said he would do. It is possible Mr. Sobero is still alive. We are hopeful that he is still alive,'' he told a news conference.Officials on Basilan, 900 km (550 miles) south of Manila, told reporters that one of the dead men was a local Muslim leader, Mahaymin Latip, who had gone to the rebel camp at the weekend to plead for the release of some of the hostages.The rebels, enraged by talk that villagers were providing the military with information of their whereabouts, beheaded Latip and left his body to be found, they added.The second body belonged to another Filipino man, they said.The rebels seized Sobero, an American missionary couple and 17 Filipinos from a beach resort near Palawan island on May 27. After escapes, rescues and fresh seizures, they now hold more than two dozen hostages, all but three of them Filipinos.A former rebel leader said the Abu Sayyaf claim could be an attempt to sow confusion. ``In the past, there have been beheadings but also, on a few occasions, threats like this turned out to be untrue,'' Farouk Hussein told Reuters in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. ``I hope this is the case now.''Hussein, a member of the Moro National Liberation Force which has signed a peace deal with the government, has been involved in hostage negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf previously but said he had not been invited to do so this time.``You are dealing with a totalitarian kind of people. Some of them are claiming to have political goals, some are being branded as pure and simple bandits or kidnap-for-ransom groups,'' he said. ''From my little experience of negotiating with them, I think there is some wisdom in talking to them.''The Abu Sayyaf, dismissed by the government as bandits interested only in ransom money, says it is fighting for Muslim self-rule in the south of the Roman Catholic Philippines. The group has not put forward any demands for the release of hostages, except to insist on the Malaysian negotiator.In the past, the Abu Sayyaf has asked for -- and reportedly received -- millions of dollars in ransom.Sobero, 40, is from Corona, California. Missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham are from Wichita, Kansas.
To Catch a Terrorist-Mark Bowden, author of "Jihadists in Paradise," on hunting down the story of Abu Sabaya.- Justine Isola March 2007 Issue From the issue:
Jihadists in Paradise
A kidnapping at a Philippine resort triggered a yearlong hunt for pirate terrorists and their American hostages. A behind-the-scenes tale of intrigue, spycraft, and betrayal. By Mark Bowden
On May 27, 2001, a small militant Islamist group known as the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 vacationers and staffers from a resort on an island in the Southern Philippines. Their hope was to pressure the Philippine government into granting Muslim Filipinos an independent state. Among the hostages were three Americans; two of them, a Baptist missionary couple named Martin and Gracia Burnham, ended up spending more than a year in captivity in the jungle. In his March cover story, “Jihadists in Paradise” Mark Bowden chronicles the hostages’ ordeal and the ultimately successful efforts of the Philippine military—aided by American intelligence—to eliminate the group’s leading figure.Although the Philippine government had long considered the Abu Sayyaf Group a threat, the United States government was fairly indifferent to their presence—even after the three American citizens were taken hostage. The press, too, reacted somewhat apathetically, leaving the public for the most part uninformed. The day of the kidnappings, the Associated Press reported tersely, “American tourists among hostages taken from Philippine resort.” Many major U.S. newspapers failed to cover the story at all, or, if they did, their editors gave it short shrift. The Washington Post, for example, buried the story on page 12A. For several months after the kidnappings, the only New York Times mention of the Burnhams was in short clips pulled from the AP or Reuters.But just a few months later, Bowden notes, after Islamic terrorists struck dramatically inside the United States on 9/11, “everything changed. No longer was Abu Sayyaf just an obscure group of kidnappers; it was now a regional arm of the international Islamist menace.” Journalists began to explore links between the Abu Sayyaf and Osama bin Laden, and the small islands in the Southern Philippines known as Abu Sayyaf territory began to come into focus for many Americans. Today, one can easily pull up think-tank profiles of the group, and the Abu Sayyaf Group is cited on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.In “Jihadists in Paradise,” Bowden calls attention to the evolving American response to militant Islamist terrorism and explores the psychology and strategies of a group seeking to become a part of the global jihad. Bowden asks his readers to question our assumptions about the endurance of religiously motivated terrorism and points to the U.S. and Philippine militaries’ handling of this episode as a model for combating militant Islamic terrorism in the future:Eliminating [Aldam Tilao, the group’s leading figure and spokesperson] was a small, early success in what the Bush administration calls the “global war on terror,” but in the shadow of efforts like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it went largely unnoticed. As a model for the long-term fight against militant Islam, however, the hunt for Tilao is better than either of those larger engagements. Because the enemy consists of small cells operating independently all over the globe, success depends on local intelligence and American assistance subtle enough to avoid charges of imperialism or meddling, charges that often provoke a backlash and feed the movement.This story, which engagingly details everything from the hostages’ practice of licking candy wrappers clean when hunger pangs were particularly intense to the high-tech surveillance gizmos the U.S. and Philippine militaries employed, sheds useful light on how the U.S. can cooperate with local forces and enters into a larger conversation about the future of the U.S. armed forces.Mark Bowden is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. We spoke by telephone on January 19.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Do the members of the Philippine military share this perspective? In your piece, you suggest that Colonel Sabban and Captain Aragones felt they had a good relationship with the American military and the CIA.
Yes. They were delighted with our support. They would be the first to say that they would not have succeeded as readily if they didn’t have the help from the CIA and from American military intelligence.
It’s sobering that two of the American hostages were killed. Could things have turned out differently? Was the mission a success from your perspective?
It was a great success from the perspective of crushing Abu Sayyaf. It was only a mixed success in terms of rescuing hostages. This story illustrates not only how successful the United States can be when working through indigenous forces, but also some of the dangers of doing that. I believe that the hostages could have been rescued months, months earlier than Gracia was rescued, and that they could have been rescued without killing Martin if some of the egos and competition within the various Philippine military units had been set aside —and if people had been making decisions strictly on the basis of what would be the most effective way to proceed.
I do believe that the United States military probably has a higher degree of discipline in that regard than what you saw in the Philippines. There are also of course moral and legal issues raised by the willingness of the Philippine marines basically to assassinate people in the course of the investigation. The United States is complicit in that to an extent, and that’s a very serious problem we have to cope with in such situations. We can be very effective, but we also have to give up control to an extent that can endanger the success of the mission.
How did the decision of the CIA not to share certain information with marine intelligence play into this? Was this a good decision? Should we have taken more direct steps to assist the Philippine forces?
I think the division of opinion in Washington over how to proceed is an illustration of the complexity of this problem. The fact that one agency is willing to do something and the other is not says to me that we don’t have a clear enough sense of policy and direction to dictate a uniform response. In the case of Abu Sabaya, in my opinion the CIA should have been able to share lethal information [that could lead to a target’s death] as it pertained to the hostage takers, the kidnappers themselves. I don’t see the logic of the CIA’s decision not to share that kind of information, and I think it proceeded mostly from a bureaucratic tendency to protect the agency’s methods.
This is foolish. The idea that we were somehow going to be giving our capabilities away to the Philippine marines and that this would somehow compromise us doesn’t make any sense at all. A scene in the story that got cut, unfortunately, because of length described the U.S. response when Colonel Sabban asked the CIA to provide him with a satellite phone. They originally provided him with a government-issue suitcase-size phone. And he said, “What’s this?” All he wanted was the kind of phone you can buy at Circuit City, which is ten times more sophisticated and more effective and can fit in your pocket. He was mortified that this was the best the United States had to offer. So this notion —particularly when you’re working in Southeast Asia —that the United States is so far advanced technologically that we have capabilities that no one else knows about —is just ludicrous. In fact, they’re ahead of us in most cases. They don’t have the means to actually put a satellite into orbit and employ global positioning, but they certainly are aware of the capabilities of global positioning. I think the CIA’s decision not to share this information didn’t make any sense at all.
Did some of the disagreement or uncertainties in Washington have to do with the U.S.’s attitude toward the Abu Sayyaf? Was the decision to pursue the group mainly symbolic—We have no tolerance for terrorists—or were they really perceived as a large-scale threat?
I think they were perceived as a large threat after 9/11. In general, we as a country have probably overestimated the level of threat posed by Islamists because 9/11 was such a spectacular success and so far beyond even the expectations of the people who did it. It led to speculation that their capability was even greater than that. In fact, 9/11 was far off the scale of what they’re actually capable of doing. We are, in my opinion, understandably overreacting. The thugs wandering around Basilan in the Southern Philippines were basically more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight than a serious threat to the civilized world. But they’re a very ugly, terrible people, and we’re right to go after them. I think that the potential in the present world climate for them to become a more serious threat is definitely there, which is why I favor the low-key approach that we see in the story. This approach isn’t going after a flea with a sledge hammer. It’s using power in the way that a judo master uses it—a minimum application of force to accomplish the purpose you want.
One thing I noticed when reading the piece was that the excerpts from Tilao’s radio messages seem fairly devoid of any actual religious fervor or of any pointed political message. Do you think that Abu Sayyaf has an authentic ideological cause or any real grievances?
Yes, I do think that there are legitimate political differences and concern about levels of funding. I didn’t explore this heavily, but clearly the movement in the Southern Philippines would not have lasted for generations and gone through all these permutations if there were not some legitimate underlying political grievances. But the religious aspect is part of what I consider to be—the word “fad” doesn’t seem serious enough—a phase or trend of the global jihad idea, which I don’t personally believe will last very long. Terrorism will be with us forever, but the global jihad is a passing phenomenon.
Could you talk a little bit more about your understanding of the emergence of the Abu Sayyaf? How did what seemed to be primarily a secular, socialist cause, became a religiously motivated jihad? To what extent was the Abu Sayyaf Group connected to a broader militant Islamic cause?
They aspired to join the global jihad, which was a concept that Osama bin Laden has successfully sold to portions of the world. The truth of it is that there is no global al-Qaeda. There is no global organization plotting the destruction of Western society. What you have is what we see in the Philippines: a small, supposedly Islamist movement that saw an opportunity to hitch its star to the wagon.
You note that Tilao wanted Martin Burnham to identify his kidnappers as “the Osama bin Laden group.”
Bin Laden has been very, very successful in creating an umbrella, a rhetorical umbrella, for a lot of disparate groups, all of them Islamist. They believe they are part of something much bigger than their own local struggle. And that’s a major accomplishment. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that because they wish to be called the Osama bin Laden group they’re somehow taking orders from Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri or anybody else. Sabaya was a Filipino first and last. He had a little bit of experience in the Middle East and saw an opportunity to make himself appear to be more important than he really was.
As far as you know did al-Qaeda ever acknowledge the Abu Sayyaf?
I don’t know. I think they have. If not them then possibly Jemaah Islamiya, a very dangerous group in Southeast Asia that is responsible for bombings in Bali. So to that extent there is a loose linkage, but it’s much more of a franchise than a branch.
I can see the value of mutually acknowledging each other without actually sending orders back and forth or coordinating.
I don’t believe that Tilao or Khaddafy Janjalani ever met with Khalid Sheik Mohammed or any of the other organizational leaders of al-Qadea, but they represented an aspiring faction in Southeast Asia. And given the presence of a very large, restive Islamist community in the Southern Philippines, it had the potential to become a serious threat to the Philippines. That alone made the country very concerned. Our concern joined with theirs after 9/11 when we made it our business to target these small groups wherever we found them.
The Abu Sayyaf seems to have lost its prominence. I recently read that another member of the Abu Sayyaf had been killed.
Yes, someone named Abu Solaiman, who became a spokesman for the group when Tilao was killed. He was apparently involved with the group when they kidnapped the Burnhams. He was killed; Khadaffy Janjalani is also believed to have been killed. Movements like these that adopt violent, militant Islam as their banner are like the Ebola virus. They are terribly frightening because they’re so vicious. But they can’t be effective in the long run because they burn themselves out. The vast majority of people cannot stomach that kind of extremism or that kind of violence. And so they become holy terrors for a brief period of time and then they burn themselves out. They’re either killed or they wander off and try to start living a normal life.
You give the example of Alvin Siglos who might have been the ideal ally but instead became an agent for the Philippine marines.
As I said in the piece, the idea of political violence sounds good until it’s someone you love who gets killed. And then it’s not an abstract idea any more. Then it’s something very real and you begin to realize how horrific the notion of killing someone for a political reason is. It can only stay abstract as long as it doesn’t touch you. In a small community like those islands in the Philippines, it didn’t take long before it touched Alvin Siglos personally.
Do you know if the U.S. is still involved in supporting Philippine efforts to take out Abu Sayyaf members?
Yes. In fact, when I visited Jolo, the little island where General Sabban is stationed, a fairly significant detachment of U.S. Special Forces was there. They weren’t there just to give community pep talks. One of the smart things that our military is doing, and Bob Kaplan has written about this, is we are establishing a presence, a very small presence, of special operators and special forces, throughout the globe —and in some cases in very obscure places because we have an interest in what’s going on there. I think that’s a very low-key but effective way of dealing with these small cells of Islamist terrorists who pop up throughout the world.
Do you think that the Philippines is a good example of what the United States can expect in other parts of the world in terms of the level of cooperation and the talent and capabilities of the local intelligence forces?
Yes, in many places it is a model because these Islamist cells often pose even more of a threat to the local authorities than they do to the United States’ interests or to the world, so it behooves us to work with local authorities even when—and this is not true of the Philippines—even in places where we don’t necessarily have friendly relationships, or where we don’t necessarily even approve of the government. In a war you take your allies where you find them. So within limits I think it may be necessary for us to cooperate with unsavory elements to accomplish a larger goal.
I do think it’s a model for how to proceed. And I think that it’s not something the United States has been very good at throughout our history. We’re a very cocky and very arrogant country militarily. We believe that we have better soldiers and better equipment and better tactics, and our tendency is to ask the locals to stay out of the way. Whereas I think in this war, the smart thing to do is to take a back seat, to offer to help and give up a little control over the operation, but accomplish more by doing so.
Would military exercises be the logical first step if we were working with a country or group that shared a less similar ideology?
I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re necessary. And I don’t think that it was even necessary in the Philippines. The American presence in Southeast Asia and those military exercises serve a larger military purpose than going after al-Qaeda. The presence doesn’t have to be that visible—in fact, in some cases it’s better if it’s less visible.
Do you think other areas would be receptive to U.S. support?
They would be if it served their interest. And in many cases, as I said, the existing authorities are more threatened by these little groups than is the United States. So they would, if approached correctly, welcome American assistance to help find these people.
I understand you ran into Atlantic national correspondent Robert Kaplan in the Philippines while you were reporting this piece.
I should start by noting that when this happened there were only five national correspondents for the Atlantic. It’s hardly a major media outlet covering the world. I traveled initially to Manila and then took a plane down to Zamboanga City and made arrangements to get on a small plane to fly to Jolo, which is one of the more obscure places in the world.I called ahead just to tell Colonel Sabban that I was arriving, and he said, “Oh, do you know Bob Kaplan?” And I said “Yeah,” and he said, “He’s here right now.” And I thought what are the chances of two of us being in Jolo at the same time. We had Southeast Asia covered! Bob was actually leaving Jolo the day that I arrived, and I didn’t see him there, but eventually we hooked up in Zamboanga City and had a nice night out on the town.We seem to have the area covered!
FULL STORY
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