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| Southeast Asia |
| Abu Sayyaf 'a spent force' |
| 2002-07-15 |
| Abu Sayyaf rebels are a spent force after a US-Philippines military operation, but the conditions that bred them could just as easily bring forth a new Southeast Asian "terror" group, an American diplomat said Monday. "We don't think there's much left in them," US ambassador to Manila Francis Ricciardone said, speaking two weeks before a 1,000-member US military advisory mission pulls out of the southern Philippines following a six-month joint campaign against the Muslim rebel group. They've been much diminished in terms of whatever formality and organization they had. At least one of its five principal leaders has been killed, the others are on the run. The numbers of fighters clearly are much diminished." That looks like a pretty accurate assessment. Abu was more a bunch of particularly vicious bandidos than an insurgent group — that was MILF's job. Probably the next, and more serious, threat is from Jemaah Islamiyah. Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia in coordination can probably deal with them because they haven't had time to grow yet, but they will have the time and opportunity within Indonesia, where they alternate between being afraid of them and being in sympathy with them. With the organization flourishing there, it'll keep trying to spread back to PMS, continually looking for any kind of a weak spot. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |