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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippine Militants Pledge Allegiance to IS Jihadists |
| 2014-08-16 |
| [AnNahar] Hardline Moslem guerrillas in the Philippines said Friday they have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the Death Eater jihadists who now control large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Clips have been uploaded in recent weeks on the video sharing site YouTube showing both southern Philippines-based Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... rebels pledging support to the Islamic State (IS). "We have an alliance with the Islamic State and His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... ," BIFF front man Abu Misry Mama told AFP by telephone on Friday, referring to the brutal jihadist group's leader. Misry confirmed that a YouTube video uploaded on Wednesday, showing a purported BIFF leader flanked by gunnies reading a statement of support for the IS, had come from his group. BIFF split in 2008 from the Philippines' main Moslem rebel group, the 12,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The latter signed a peace agreement with President Benigno Aquino's government last March. BIFF, which is believed to have a few hundred fighters, has rejected the peace talks and pursued the decades-old armed campaign to establish an Islamic state in the southern Philippines which was begun by the MILF. Abu Misry, described by the Philippine military as a BIFF front man, said his group had no plans to impose the radical IS brand of Islam in the Southeast Asian nation. Beheadings, mass executions and the taking of child brides have marked the IS campaign across large parts of Iraq and Syria. Abu Misry said his group had not sent any fighters from the Philippines to help the IS, nor was it recruiting people to join the IS. "But if they need our help, why not?" he added. Colonel Dickson Hermoso, front man for a southern Philippines-based army division, described BIFF as a "terrorist" group engaged in extortion to finance its activities. "There's no evidence that Filipino fighters are being sent there (to Syria and Iraq)," Hermoso told AFP, while adding that both BIFF and IS followed an "extreme" brand of Islam. A purported Abu Sayyaf video has also been uploaded on Youtube showing one of the group's most big shots, Isnilon Hapilon, mentioning al-Baghdadi as he read out a statement that pledged allegiance to the IS. He was filmed linking arms with more than a dozen men, some with faces swathed in fabric, as they stood at a forest clearing to pray and listen to his statement. Hapilon carries an $5 million reward on his head by the United States which considers his group a "foreign terror organization" engaged in beheadings, bombings, and kidnappings. Philippine military front man Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala dismissed the video clips. "This is propaganda and we will not give these snuffies the satisfaction by commenting," Zagala told AFP. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 A terrorist by any other name remains a terrorist. Change names every day for all I care. |
| Posted by: borgboy 2014-08-16 17:56 |
| #1 Again, not that far away from Guam. As per TOPIX + WORLD NEWS, INDONESIA IS PREPARING FOR ISLAMIST = ISIS? DOMESTIC TROUBLES ANYWAY. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-08-16 00:02 |