[CNN] Philippine Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza on Tuesday confirmed reports that five Malaysians tugboat crew members have been kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf in Sabah, Malaysia. He said, "They took again five more Malaysians in Lahad Datu."
The tugboat was sailing from Sandakan to Sempora when it was waylaid. The vessel was found unmanned on Saturday in Lahad Datu, a part of the waters bordering Tawi-Tawi. If the kidnapping is confirmed, there would have been at least 18 Indonesians and Malaysians seized by the Abu Sayyaf in three separate abductions since early this year.
Dureza said Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leader Nur Misuari has informed officials he is willing to assist in going after the Abu Sayyaf. The Abu Sayyaf was a breakaway group from the MNLF, established by Abdurajak Janjalani in the 1990s.
Dureza said, "There is an effort right now by the group of Chairman Nur Misuari. I talked with him today, he called me over the phone and he said that he'd like to do coordination with our military forces on the ground because they'd like also to help in addressing the criminal acts committed by the so-called Abu Sayyaf Group."
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[Nikkei Asian Review] Indonesian police have confirmed the death the country's most-wanted terrorist with links to Daesh only a week after a new police chief was sworn in. Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah, had been in hiding for several years in the jungles of Poso district, Central Sulawesi Province, before he and another gunman were gunned down during a joint operation by police and the military on Monday afternoon.
National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said on Tuesday afternoon, "I've just received information that the fingerprint matches an old one of [Santoso]. He had been detained before, so we can conclude 100% that the dead person was Santoso."
The other rebel killed was identified as one of Santoso's followers.
Santoso, 40, was the commander of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), which became the most prominent terror group in the country after police mostly managed to incapacitate Jemaah Islamiyah. JI, the Southeast Asian counterpart of al-Qaida, was responsible for large-scale terror attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. JI targeted Western establishments, but MIT became known for its series of attacks targeting police officers and police facilities in 2012.
Santoso was a former seller of Islamic books who was inspired by Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, a firebrand cleric and spiritual leader of JI currently detained in an Indonesian prison. His group had been holding paramilitary training for local militants in Poso jungles ,even before Santoso pledged his allegiance to Daesh in 2014. Santoso proclaimed himself the local Daesh "commander" in Indonesia in a video uploaded to YouTube in 2015. Santoso had been on the police's wanted list since 2007.
Apart from dozens of other MIT militants still hiding in the jungles of Poso, there are other terror cells in the nation operating independently, such as one led by a man called Bahrun Naim. Naim, who is believed to have joined Daesh in Syria, allegedly orchestrated a terror attack in Jakarta in January that killed eight people.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Nikkei Asian Review] Indonesian police have confirmed the death the country's most-wanted terrorist with links to Daesh only a week after a new police chief was sworn in. Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah, had been in hiding for several years in the jungles of Poso district, Central Sulawesi Province, before he and another gunman were gunned down during a joint operation by police and the military on Monday afternoon.
