ASG video out on internet; military says it is propaganda move to generate funds

By Ronron
August 17, 2007

A video of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) supposedly seeking support from the international community has come out on the internet, and the Philippine military was quick to brand it as a propaganda tool of the terrorist group, depicting desperation for survival.

According to the website of The Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), the one-hour-and-two-minute video entitled, “The Filipino Lions are Coming,” was distributed to jihadist forums last August 15.

A nine-minute-and-43-second clip of the video was posted on the Youtube website the following day, wherein text messages and narration were done in the Islamic tongue.

But the SITE claims that the video shows “two of its (ASG) former leaders, founder Abdul Raziq Abu Bakr (or Abdurajak) Janjalani AKA (also known as) Abu Sayyaf, and Khadaffi Janjalani, each appear in archived footage urging Moslems to contribute support, both financial and material, to the Mujahideen in Abu Sayyaf.”

The Janjalani brothers have since died in separate military operations – Abdurajak in December 1998 in Basilan, and Khadaffi in September 2006 in Sulu.

The SITE also said that the group has been lacking in ammunition, armaments and medicine.

“We do believe that it’s just a propaganda,” Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) information officer Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said upon seeing the video.

Being a terrorist group, Bacarro said the international community “should not fall victims to the trap of this propaganda” of the ASG.

Bacarro said the use of old video clips of the Janjalani brothers also showed that “the ASG is in disarray.” “Why is that the former leadership of the ASG are speaking? Why not the current leadership who are asking support?”

And the video itself “is an indication of how effective the government effort is – the PNP (Philippine National Police) and AFP, as well as other law enforcement agencies, relative to the fight against terrorism,” he said.

“Their (ASG) resource generating activities have been prevented by our combined efforts, that’s why they are now targeting the international community for their support for their logistics,” Bacarro said.

“Secondly, it just shows that the people in the area no longer want to support the ASG,” he added.

The AFP has said that the ASG’s current strength is not more than 400, mostly wandering in the mountains of Sulu./DMS