ASG has new leader

By Ronron
June 27, 2007

The terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has a new leader in the person of Yasser Igasan.

Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino said Igasan was elected after a voting done by the ASG members two to three weeks ago in Indanan, Sulu.

“We got the information from the group itself. We have men inside the group,” Tolentino told reporters yesterday in a chance interview at Camp Aguinaldo.

Former Police Intelligence Group director Chief Supt. Ricardo Romeo, who is now chief of the Civil Security Group, said Igasan is an Islamic scholar who was among the original founders of the ASG in the mid-1980’s.

Romeo, however, together with Sulu-based Brig. Gen. Ruperto Pabustan, commander of the RP-US Joint Special Operations Task Force, is saying that Igasan’s leadership is not yet confirmed and is still being validated.

Tolentino said the assumption of Igasan to the top ASG post was learned after some ordinary members complained of his being a weak commander.

Reached by phone, Pabustan said Igasan was the money man of the group when ASG leaders Khadaffy Janjalani and Jainal Antel Sali, alias Abu Solaiman, were still alive. Janjalani was killed in an encounter in Patikul in September 2006, while Sali was shot dead in an operation last January in Talipao town.

“He (Igasan) facilitates resources coming from abroad. He is the one who goes abroad to get funding (for the ASG), areas where Al Qaeda is present like Afghanistan and Indonesia,” Pabustan said.

Though weak, the Sulu-native Igasan, who is in his 40’s, is really one of the candidates for the top ASG leadership, said Pabustan.

Asked if Igasan therefore does not have the caliber of Sali by describing him as weak, Pabustan said: “We can’t say that because he is not a warrior. He is just in charge of funding.”

It can be recalled that after the neutralization of Janjalani and Sali, reports surfaced that Radullan Sahiron and Isnilon Hapilon took over the leadership.

The ASG has been tagged as a terrorist group by foreign governments following a number of bombing, kidnap-for-ransom, and other activities it carried out over the last decade./DMS