Hey there boys and girls! Welcome to another weekly martial law update. Lots of things have been happening this past week in the Philippines under martial law and I'm eager to tell you all about them. But first of all today's secret word is "
suicide bomber." You all remember what to do when anyone says the secret word right?
Scream real loud! Ready to learn about what's been happening down in Mindanao this past week? I know I sure am. Let's go!
On June 28th a military camp in Sulu was attacked by two suicide bombers and was also hit with mortars and sniper fire. This is the third suicide bombing within a year the first taking place on July 31, 2018 in Basilan at a military checkpoint. The second suicide bombing took place at a Sulu Cathedral on January 27, 2019. Three such attacks within a year's span might sound low but it has DND Secretary Lorenzana concerned.
The bombing in Sulu was the third in less than a year in Mindanao, which is under martial law.
“This is actually a very important development in the South … It’s becoming a frequent occurrence and we are very much concerned about this,” Lorenzana said.
Lorenzana said the military was checking the identities of the bombers.
Gen. Oscar Albayalde, chief of the Philippine National Police, told a press briefing at Camp Crame on Monday that there was a strong possibility the suicide bombers were Filipinos.
“If they are [Filipinos], that is the first time that we have locals engaged in suicide bombings,” Albayalde said.
PNP Chief Albayalde neglects to mention the real fear officials have that one of the suicide bombers might be a Filipino.
“A Filipino suicide bomber has long been one of the greatest fears of those in the security sector. It means that the indoctrination of violent extremism has penetrated our society,” Biazon said in a text message to INQUIRER.net.
A Filipino
suicide bomber means much more than that. It means that the AFP and PNP have failed at their jobs of stomping out terrorism in the Philippines. It turns out their fear has come true. One of the suicide bombers was a Filipino.
A Filipino militant who joined the Abu Sayyaf bandit group five years ago has been identified as one of the two suicide bombers who attacked an Army camp in Sulu province last week, killing eight people, a senior military official said on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old militant, Norman Lasuca, was identified by his mother, said Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom).
Sobejana said Lasuca left his family in Barangay Asturias in Jolo, Sulu’s capital, in 2014 to join an Abu Sayyaf faction led by commander Hajan Sawadjaan, the suspected mastermind of Friday’s attack in Indanan town and who is aligned with the Islamic State (IS) group.
“This is the only time that she saw him again,” Sobejana said of Lasuca’s mother. The family claimed the severed head of the militant and buried it, he said.
The second bomber managed to dash into the camp but was shot by soldiers. He was heard yelling “Allahu akbar!” (God is great!) before his bomb exploded.
The second militant had Caucasian features and was suspected to be a son of a foreign jihadist with Moroccan blood, who died also in a suicide bombing attack in Basilan province last year, according to Sobejana.
Sobejana said the bombs could have also been set off remotely.
“We are not a hundred percent certain that it was a suicide bombing, but the probability is high,” the official added.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the attack was “obviously a suicide bombing.”
Notice how Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, the head of Westmincon no less, tries to downplay what DND Secretary Lorenzna calls the obvious which is that this attack was a suicide bombing. If you remember rightly the AFP has downplayed the threat of ISIS since their arrival in the Philippines back in 2014. Even now they continue to live in a state of denial about ISIS and their tactics. Such denial is getting the AFP nowhere in their lackadaisical fight against extremism. Remember how foreign analysts have repeatedly warned about foreigners making their way to the Philippines to wage jihad? Turns out they were right! The second bomber is suspected to be the son of the first suicide bomber from last year's attack in Basilan.
This week a Kenyan with links to Al Qaida was arrested in Zambales.
Police Maj. Gen. Amador Corpuz, director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), identified the suspect as Cholo Abdi Abdullah, a Kenyan national, who was arrested at the Rasca Hotel in Iba, Zambales around 3:30 p.m.
Abdullah is the subject of a search warrant issued by the Mariveles, Bataan Regional Trial Court for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Recovered from him were a 9-mm pistol, magazine and ammunition, an Improvised Explosive Device, a hand grenade and other bomb-making components.
Abdullah is studying to be a pilot at All Asia Aviation Academy and is allegedly doing research on different aviation threats, aircraft hijacking and falsifying travel documents.
"We are still investigating as to why he enrolled at All Asia Aviation Academy that is based in Pasay. They have a flight instruction school in Iba, Zambales. The suspect has been staying since 2017 in Iba, Zambales,” said Corpuz.
He added that the AFP and PNP have yet to determine where to detain the suspect.
The arrest of this man comes on the heels of the recent arrest of a
Pakistani national in Zamboanga a few weeks ago. How many more foreign jihadis are in the country? How many of them are teaching Filipino jihadis the ways of the
suicide bomber? Have no fear the PNP are on top of the case!
“We have to have a good intelligence. That’s very important. We have to step up our intelligence gathering here,” Albayalde told CNN Philippines.
It's true. The PNP and the AFP have to step up their intelligence gathering game. The Kenyan above was arrested at the behest of foreign agencies and not on the initiative of the PNP or AFP. Abdullah and been hiding out in the Philippines since 2017 and no one knew he was here. That's not very good intelligence. Perpetually downplaying the nature of the threat ISIS poses to the nation is also not very good intelligence.
There is certainly a cycle that repeats itself in Mindanao. A big battle is won. The enemy is then declared to be irrelevant and defeated. The enemy regrows. They launch a deadly attack. The AFP vows to destroy them once more.
A Marine battalion was deployed in Sulu to beef up government’s security presence in the province that was rocked by recent bombings in a military camp, and grappling with a long-running bout with terrorists.
Their mission: “Destroy the Abu Sayyaf … and establish a peaceful and stable environment in Sulu,” said Rear Adm. Erick Kagaoan, commander of Naval Forces Western Mindanao.
The deployment came amid the twin attacks on an Army camp in Indanan, Sulu, that killed eight people, including the two bombers, and wounded 12 soldiers and 10 civilians.
“This unit is not new here, it has been deployed in Mindanao before. They are needed in Sulu now,” Kagaoan said on the sidelines of send-off rites at the Port of Zamboanga on Tuesday.
Tolentino said a number of his men were “well-versed on Sulu hence ready to face the challenges in the province.” “Our primary mission is to destroy the Abu Sayyaf, IS (Islamic State) and other terror groups in Sulu,” he said.
Same old song and dance. MBLT 8 has been in Mindanao before and is familiar with the challenges in Sulu and now they will "destroy the Abu Sayyf." Why didn't they do that before? Why did they leave without having destroyed Abu Sayyaf during their previous deployment to Sulu? This battalion has not even been specially sent in the wake of the recent attack as they were sent to replace another battalion on June 27th just a few days before the suicide bombing. Perhaps with their new training and weapons upgrade they will really do it this time.
"In retraining, we're building the skills (set of every Marine assigned in MBLT-8) and afterwards we come up with team training, then we will review the lessons learned and also they will have get new gear or upgraded equipment," the PMC spokesperson said in Filipino.
The emergence of the first ever Filipino
suicide bomber is the end result of the AFP and the PNP's penchant for resting on their laurels and denying the severity of the problem. Don't believe the hype when the phrase "game changer" is thrown about.
"The change did not come with (Friday's) bombing, it came with the introduction of a lethal new ideology into the Philippines," said security analyst Sidney Jones.
"The game-changer" was the Islamic State, she added.
As its "caliphate" crumbled in the Middle East, ISIS has stepped up its strategy of absorbing existing insurgent groups around the world and claiming their attacks.
The group has had a presence for years in the south of the Philippines, where rugged terrain and weak government control provide a safe haven for fighters.
"It is an escalation, but it's also a sign of increased radicalization," said Zachary Abuza, Southeast Asian security expert at the National War College in Washington.
Analysts have long feared suicide attacks would take root in the Philippines, given the ISIS influence and presence of foreign fighters.
"Society is changing. Their method of attack is changing. Suicide bombing is the current and future method of attack," said Rommel Banlaoi, chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.
The game-changer was the Islamic State?
But they have been in the country since 2014 and the AFP and PNP repeatedly denied that fact.
The real game changer will be if this suicide bombing finally opens the eyes of the AFP and PNP to the seriousness of the presence of ISIS in the Philippines. Even after the siege of Marawi had begun and ISIS claimed responsibility the AFP and PNP said the following:
"We don't have ISIS in the Philippines," Col. Edgard Arevalo, AFP public affairs office chief told reporters.
Just last year after the suicide bombing in Basilan the AFP had this to say:
“They are claiming everything. Even what happened in Manila, they were claiming to have had a hand in it. They are doing it to heighten the support and to show that they are still there,” Galvez said.
He also discounted the possibility that the supposed suicide bomber in last Tuesday’s attack was a foreigner.
An anti-terror official, however, maintained the suicide bomber was a foreigner, bolstering claims and identifying the slain suspect as Abu Kathir Al-Maghrib, a Moroccan jihadist.
Then AFP Chief Gen. Galvez was wrong on both counts. It was ISIS and the bomber was a Moroccan jihadist. Just a few weeks later he changed his tune before a Senate budget hearing.
“The greatest threat that we have now is really ISIS,” said Galvez during a budget hearing on Wednesday. He referred particularly to its adherents – the Maute Group and BIFF in Central Mindanao and the Abu Sayyaf Group in Western Mindanao.
Yet, the military also constantly downplays ISIS influence here and sometimes still talks like it's dealing with a conventional threat.
Time will tell if the game has been changed and the AFP and PNP are more proactive in their efforts to snuff out ISIS and quit treating them like a conventional threat. As it is their continual denials about the presence of ISIS have led to the first ever Filipino
suicide bomber. AHHH! AHHH! AHHH!
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