years...although it was soon to suffer violent attacks on US military and diplomatic targets abroad. The bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 brought the problem into the USA’s own backyard” (Allen, Simonsen, and Spindlove, 2000, Forward).
In Asia, terrorist groups also conduct reigns of terror in the backyards of various countries. In the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf wages a war of violence, extortion, and brutality that often threats to disrupt the government and has created a need for foreign intervention and aid (mainly from the US). As one article on the issue notes, “The country’s armed forces number only about 100,000 troops, but $2 billion a year is spent on modernization (partially funded by the US)” (Philippines, 2002, 1). This analysis will explore the presence of the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, including its history, organization, methods, ideology, and recommendations for dealing with such organizations in future.
After occupation by the Japanese in the 1940s, the Philippines gained its independence in 1946 (CIA, 2002, 2). For more than two decades the country was ruled by Ferdinand Marcos, when a rebellion in the mid-1980s forced him into exile. In 1992, the US closed the last of its military bases in the region, and the country has been led by two elected presidents since the exile of Marcos. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled Joseph Estrada no longer able to rule after the mass defection of his administrators. Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was constitutionally appointed to the office of President.
Officially, the Philippines is constituted as a Republic with 73 provinces and 61 cities (CIA, 2002, 4). The government is ruled by a constitution enacted in 1987, and the government is broken into three branches similar to the US government: executive, legislative, and judicial. While there are numerous political parties that vie for power in the Phili...