Al Qaeda and its connection to the Philippines

As we transitioned from the turmoil of the second world war in 1945, terrorism has taken its place as the new global threat of the 21st century. Although terrorism that is associated with jihad can be traced back to the advent of the crusade in the 11^th century, its practice by certain extremist groups today would be regarded as highly immoral and unethical in the context of modern society.

Al Qaeda, an Arabic term which translates as a “base of operation”, a “precept” or a “method” that was founded by Osama Bin Laden in 1988, has been known as the seat of the terrorist organization in the world since the infamous 9/11 attack in the United States. The said ‘organization’ came into the mind of Bin Laden when the late Sheik Abdullah Azzam recruited him to join the guerilla insurgents who fought against the Soviet Union in a nine-year Soviet-Afghan war that commenced in 1979. However, their role as participants were not fighters themselves but used their extensive connections to provide financial and moral support for the mujahideen. They also encouraged young men from all over the Middle East to be a part of the Afghan jihad. This gave him the idea of establishing a pan-Islamic state, thus, he founded al Qaeda. However, al Qaeda is more of an ideology rather than an organization since the Islamist militant would have always understood it as a ‘method’ instead of a ‘base of operation’ (Burke, 2004; History.com Editors, 2009).

The alleged connection between al Qaeda and the Abu Sayyaf Group (est. 1990) was believed to be strong for the first decade since they were founded, according to US officials. Their connection was thought to have started much earlier before Abu Sayyaf was realized when the Al Islamic Tabligh, also a fundamentalist movement in the 1980s whom the Abu Sayyaf founder Abubakar Janjalani was connected, had been receiving financial support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, including funds to send young Muslim men to schools in the Middle East of which Janjalani was one of the beneficiaries (James & Cooley, 2001; CRS Report, 2007).

However, the most compelling evidence of the connection of al Qaeda to the Philippines was when Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a Saudi and brother-in-law of Bin Laden, had been operating a number of Islamic charities in the southern Philippines. Moreover, Ramzi Yoesef, an identified al Qaeda operative, came to the Philippines in 1994 and reportedly trained the Abu Sayyaf fighters. He also established an al Qaeda cell in Manila for a planned assassination of Pope John Paul II, the planting of bombs aboard 12 U.S. airliners flying across the Pacific, and the crashing of an airplane into the CIAs headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Fortunately, the police uncovered the cell in 1995, Jamal Khalifa left the Philippines, and Yoesuf was later arrested in Pakistan (CRS Report, 2007).

 

 

 

References

Burke, J. (2004). Al Qaeda. Foreign Policy, No. 142, 18

History.com Editors (2009, December 16). Osama Bin Laden. Retrieved from history.com

CRS Report (2007, July 26). Abu Sayyaf: target of Philippine-US anti-terrorism cooperation. Every CRS Report. Retrieved from everycrsreport.com

James, M. S., & Cooley, J. K. (2001, December 20). The Abu Sayyaf-al Qaeda connection. ABC News. Retrieved from abcnews.go.com