EDITORIAL  — Backup for an offensive

For more than a year now security forces have scored major gains against the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. In 2006 chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani was killed in an encounter with government forces in Sulu. Later the group’s spokesman Abu Sulaiman was also killed. Lower ranking members have since been killed or captured.

The campaign suffered a setback last year when Abu Sayyaf militants, apparently with the help of local warlords, returned to Basilan, a province that was supposed to have been rid of the terrorists since 2002. The Abu Sayyaf was blamed for the ambush in July where 14 Marines looking for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi were killed, with 10 of them decapitated. 

Government forces responded to the ambush with major offensives in both Basilan and Sulu. By the end of the year the Abu Sayyaf was down to an estimated 500 fighters and just three major commanders — Isnilon Hapilon, Radullan Sahiron and Abu Pula. The group is believed to be harboring Jemaah Islamiyah bombers Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who are wanted for the deadly 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia. The Abu Sayyaf is now considered weak enough for military officers to predict the neutralization of the group within the year.

The prediction may not be off the mark, but the group can be wiped out only if the military campaign is backed by efforts to bring development to the terrorists’ areas of operation. Education, livelihood opportunities, health care, infrastructure development and the delivery of other basic services such as water supply deprive terrorists of public support.

The Abu Sayyaf has been written off as a spent force in the past. Always the group has managed to regroup and regain its strength. The last time the group recovered, it teamed up with Jemaah Isla-miyah and set off a bomb on a Super Ferry in Manila Bay, leaving more than 100 people dead and missing. This time the government should not waste the gains achieved through sustained effort and at the cost of soldiers’ lives. Victory is possible and should not be allowed to slip away.