Cornered

Heavy fighting has been going on the past few days around Indanan in Sulu. Engaged in the running battle are units of the Philippine Marines and a fairly large armed group said to be an Abu Sayyaf contingent reinforced by pro-Misuari MNLF renegades.

The fighting has caused the temporary displacement of some 430 families or over 2,000 civilians in the area. Seven soldiers were killed so far and 21 others were injured in the raging battle.

There is no clear body count of casualties suffered by the bandits. The AFP reports, however, that based on radio intercepts the bandits have lost over 20 fighters.

Some of the wounded soldiers interviewed on television expressed surprise at the level of firepower available to the bandits. They had mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and plenty of ammunition as they held out against an AFP force supported by howitzers and Air Force planes.

Where did they get all those weapons?

My guess is that the Abu Sayyaf bandits have formed a close relationship with the pro-Misuari MNLF faction, which has held on to its armaments despite the peace agreement. It is imaginable that the renegade MNLF faction and the Sulu-based formation of the Abu Sayyaf are virtually one and the same thing.

Financial assistance of some magnitude could be coming from the Al Qaeda/ Jemaah Islamiyah network.

Recall that one of the suspects in last year’s Valentine’s Day bombing, who has confessed and offered to turn state witness, also admits to opening a bank account through which funding from the Al Qaeda passes. It is funding granted by the international terror network in exchange for continued terrorist attacks by their Moro colleagues.

In the absence of any significant financial sources from criminal activities lately, there is no other way the bandits could maintain their armed strength and sustain their fighting forces except through some external funding source.

This is a matter that our security officials are, I suppose, looking into intently. If the bandits have to maintain a fairly large and fairly well-equipped fighting force, they will need to demonstrate capacity for conducting terrorist campaigns to keep the funding channels active.

That is a shuddering thought.

The level of armed competence of the bandits suggests they will have to keep their terrorist activities going to please their fanatical patrons. They will need to conduct more high-profile attacks on our densely-populated cities in order to keep the funds flowing.

Terrorists, by the demands of keeping their movement going, will have to work increasingly at the behest of international jihadis. They cannot just huddle in the remote villages, waiting to be attacked by our armed forces. They will have to plan attacks and wreak havoc to deserve the support they get from international terrorist networks.

A party-list congressman from the leftist Bayan Muna bloc warned that government is violating the peace accord with the MNLF by entering territories implicitly guaranteed the rebel group. That is a treasonous thing to say.

If all the MNLF units vigilantly stood by their commitments in the peace accord, they would not allow any of their territory to be used as sanctuaries by the bandit gang. That bandit gang, furthermore, will have no other place to hide except the base areas of the mainline secessionist movements.

It would not have been possible for the Abu Sayyaf gang to nestle in the Indanan area without the support of MNLF factions.

From the looks of it, a fairly large Aby Sayyaf force in cornered in the hills around Indanan. Some of the fighters they rely on to keep the attacking military units at bay could imaginably be MNLF personnel.

Since that MNLF faction chose to violate the peace accords by giving aid and comfort to the terrorist Abu Sayyaf band, there is neither moral nor political prohibition on the AFP entering the base areas of the withered secessionist movement. Our Marines are in hot and heroic pursuit of a patently terrorist band. Their entry into MNLF "territory" is perfectly correct.

Degrading the ability of that terrorist band is an important objective. It will help reduce the capability of this band to attack our cities, train the bombers to put on murderous assignments and amass explosives and other armaments that will be used for acts of terror in those sanctuaries – wittingly or unwittingly enjoying MNLF support.

Having cornered the large bandit unit in Indanan, the AFP ought to push this engagement to a decisive conclusion. The entire bandit unit, which could include top-level Abu Sayyaf personalities, deserves to be wiped out. From the statements we are hearing from AFP commanders in the ground, this will be done as soon as reinforcements arrive to beef up the campaign.

This is not the time to hew and haw about civilian displacements and all the collateral costs of waging a military campaign. This campaign is not just about degrading the ability of the bandits to fight our soldiers. More important, it is about degrading their ability to inflict terror on our people.

If units of the MNLF stand in the way, they should be treated as a hostile force giving aid and comfort to terrorists. They, too, should be destroyed.

Enough of our soldiers have been killed or injured in the course of that campaign. Their sacrifices would be for naught if we let this bandit unit slip out of the corner, step out of the dragnet, and disappear into the bush only to threaten us later.

We who are threatened by terrorism must stand solidly behind our soldiers. They are fighting this battle so that we may be safe in the buses and ferries that we ride.

Let’s do this right this time. Let the offensive push on until the enemy force is completely crushed.

Then our days will be safer. We will not have to live under the threat of bombing runs intending to kill as many innocents as possible. Remember that all the terrorists we have in custody confess to having trained in the sanctuaries of the withered secessionist movements.