Sec 310 Week 9 Assignment 2

Assignment 2: Terrorist Organization

James Lockhart

SEC 310

Professor Darrel Nerove

6 December 2015

Over the past years, there has been much focus on Middle Eastern terror groups. Mainstream media has done multiple reports on groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, but has forgotten that there are groups in Asia, as well, that are just as violent and dangerous. These groups are mainly located in the Asian countries of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and by all accounts should be monitored just as much by the international community as their Middle Eastern counterparts. This paper will discuss the terror group Abu Sayyaf, based out of the Philippines.

For centuries there has been a Muslim presence in the Philippines and about forty years ago, these groups really started making their presence known, not only locally but internationally. There were two major Muslim separatist factions and one of them, the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF), is where Abu Sayyaf split from to form their own group. This occurred in the early 1990s at a time when the Muslim community in the Philippines was attempting to negotiate with the central government in Manila. Based out of the Mindanao Province, they soon became an active group when a grenade attack was carried out in 1991 killing two American evangelists. (Abu Sayyaf Group, 2009)

With backing from the Middle Eastern terror groups, Abu Sayyaf Group wasted little time thereafter in asserting itself as the predominant terror group in the area. They have carried out mostly kidnappings for ransom but have also committed various other types of attacks. Some of the more notable activities are as follows:

In May 2001, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped twenty people from a Philippine resort and held them for ransom. Included in the twenty were three Americans; a Christian missionary couple and a tourist. The kidnappers ended up beheading the tourist and holding the couple on Basilan Island until Philippine commandos...