Philippine Airstrike Targets Militant Network

Summary

USAF

A U.S. OV-10 Bronco

The Philippine air force struck a militant camp on Jolo Island, killing 15 militants, including key leaders of militant groups Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Because the former often provides bases of operations for the latter, strikes against its camps will adversely affect JI. As the two groups continue to degrade, militant threats from the region will continue to be relegated to grassroots tactics.

Analysis

On Feb. 2, two OV-10 Bronco light attack aircraft from the Philippine air force struck a militant camp on Jolo Island, a traditional haven for the Abu Sayyaf militants and their allies in the transnationalist, al Qaeda-linked militant group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). About 15 militants were killed in the airstrike, including three key militant figures: Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, a senior JI leader; Umbra Jumdail, also known as Dr. Abu Pula, the overall leader of Abu Sayyaf; and Abdullah Ali, also known as Muawiyah, a Singaporean JI commander. Philippine police and intelligence agents reportedly have identified the victims, though some security officials said Marwan's body has yet to be found.

Part of a concerted military campaign backed by the United States, the incident is a significant blow to Abu Sayyaf. More important, any blow dealt to Abu Sayyaf likewise hurts JI, which has relied on Abu Sayyaf to provide training camps and bases of operations in the Sulu Archipelago. With a training camp gone and several key leaders killed, there will be issues of reconstituting leadership and re-examination of operational security to determine weaknesses that may have contributed to the attack. Stratfor has long argued that while targeted assassination of key leaders in counterterrorism campaigns cannot alone defeat a terrorist organization, it can go a long way in reducing their capabilities and operational bandwidth.

Abu Sayyaf's degradation has been years in the making -- a Philippine airstrike killed three Abu Sayyaf militants in Jolo as recently as October 2011. Small-scale airstrikes certainly hurt JI, but they are not as damaging as the removal of key leaders. Indeed, the arrest of Umar Patek in Abbottobad, Pakistan, was perhaps the most important success against JI before the Feb. 2 airstrike. Along with Marwan, Umar Patek collaborated with Abu Sayyaf to raise money, plot attacks and provide training to aspiring militants. After Patek's arrest, Marwan allegedly assumed control of JI operations in the Philippines.

Notably, some of the plots targeted U.S. troops in the area, prompting the United States to offer a $5 million reward for Marwan's capture. The United States has supported some of the missions targeting Abu Sayyaf and JI operations. While the current Status of Visiting Forces Agreement precludes direct U.S. combat operations in the Philippines, the United States maintains about 600 special operators in the southern Philippines and has been involved in intelligence-gathering missions to track militants. (Washington likely provided -- at minimum -- intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assistance for the Feb. 2 airstrike.) The U.S. military also trains and assists the Philippine military.

Abu Sayyaf has been hurt, but the group has not been eliminated completely. Jolo is home to around 300,000 people, 90 percent of whom are Muslim, so the militant group likely will be able to establish training camps elsewhere in the area. But if Abu Sayyaf is a resource used by JI for basing and training, it is a resource that is being depleted. Moreover, the degradation of Abu Sayyaf hurts JI's connections to the battle-hardened militants that came out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and formed militant networks in the 1990s. JI could still attempt to leverage its connections with other regional militant groups such as Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM), but KMM networks in Malaysia -- and JI's bases in Indonesia -- cannot provide the same level of flexibility nor sanctuary as the Abu Sayyaf camps previously did in the Sulu archipelago.

Many of these veterans have been arrested and killed, and training camps increasingly are being taken out. Most militant groups will suffer for want of training, supplies and coordination from regional or transnational networks. Therefore, localized and grassroots attacks will characterize militant threats in Southeast Asia, provided that continued pressure is applied on JI, ISG and linked networks.

note: This article from www.stratfor.com. Here are links to original article: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/philippine-airstrike-targets-militant-network