Abu Sayyaf

The events of September 11, 2001, in New York City are still fresh in the minds of millions of people around the world. The direct result of terrorist actions by fundamentalist religious fanatics, these events demonstrated to the modern world that the methods of terrorists are capable of massive destruction of property and lives. This is true even if the rebel or guerilla terrorists responsible amount to only a handful of individuals with limited resources (cash, weapons, etc.). Like those responsible for the attacks on New York City, most terrorist groups in the world are associated with Islamic fundamentalism. In this particular case, the terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, was responsible for coordinating the deadliest attack on U.S. soil. al Qaeda's ideology centers around the Sunni Islamic strict interpretation of the Koran. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf terrorist organizations has been linked with bin Laden and al Qaeda and follows the same Wahabi interpretation of Islam.

The rise of many modern terrorist groups has its origins in the 1960s and 1970s. Terrorists, despite their claims, motives, or methods, have typically been viewed as criminal first and terrorists second by those responsible for combating them. Terrorist groups typically evolve around a core set of values or ideology that pertains to religious, political, and/or ethnic issues. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, terrorist organ

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ighly concerned that weapons and other resources aimed at destruction will fall into the hands of southern Muslim insurgents due to the fall of the al Qaeda in Afghanistan due to US military action. Since the beginning of 2002, US military advisers have been training Filipino soldiers in the southern Philippines in an effort to combat Abu Sayyaf terrorist efforts. The Philippine government, unlike some that offer refuge to terrorists, has solicited US support in light of recent acts of terrorism by members of Abu Sayyaf. As John Ydstie (2002, 1) notes, "The Philippine government asked the Bush administration to help root out Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim group believed to be linked with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The Abu Sayyaf has held hostage two American missionaries and a Filipino American nurse for months." One of the biggest problems in dealing with the Abu Sayyaf is the fact that they follow the strict form of Islam known as Wahabi. This form of Islam comes with many restrictions and its adherents follow the Koran and allow no outside interpretation of its words but their own. It is this sect that forms the core of the anti-Western backlash in groups like al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and other fundamentalist Islamic

Category: Foreign - A