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there, he met Usama bin Ladin and befriended such figures as Ramzi Yousef and
Abdur Rab Rasul Sayaaf, a religious scholar. He was also exposed to, and
influenced by, Middle East-Sunni jihadist ideology, including the following
principles: 1) commitment to the renewal of an Umma by a return to Islam’s
fundamentalist roots; 2) advocacy of jihad in the defense of the faith; 3)
establishment of Allah’s sovereignty—al Hakmiyah—over the whole of humanity;
4) revival of the caliphate going back to the fourth rightly successor of the
prophet, al-Rashidun; and 5) creation of a Muslim Umma based on salafiyyah
(Islamic puritanical beliefs). 4
By the time of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Janjalani had become
committed to waging a jihad back home in Mindanao to create a pure Islamic
state based on Salafi Wahhabism. 5 Thus, upon his return to Basilan, Janjalani
became disenchanted with what he viewed as the moderate aims and tactics of
the mainstream MNLF and, in 1991, Janjalani and seven of his followers broke
from MNLF to form ASG. 6 While the group initially consisted of just twenty
members, primarily Muslim volunteers who fought in Afghanistan, ASG
eventually attracted hundreds of recruits, as Janjalani was able to persuade a
number of MNLF provincial commanders that their group was not waging a real
jihad against the Christians. Moreover, in the early 1990s, ASG received financial
and material support from foreign sources, including al-Qa’ida, which helped to
bolster its capabilities. 7
Since its early days, the estimated number of ASG fighters has varied from a
liberate the Filipino Muslims from the terror, oppression and tyranny of the Filipino Christians,
and to establish an independent and secular Muslim state by means of an armed struggle. The
MNLF got support from Muammar Qaddafi of Libya and from the governor of Sabah, Malaysia,
who both supplied arms and provided training and other forms of aid to these young Filipino
Muslims.
4
Philippine Marines, Doctrinal Extracts: Abu Sayyaf (Makati City: Philippine Marines, date
unknown), 39-40.
5
Zachary Abuza, “Al Qaeda Comes to Southeast Asia,” in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia:
Transnational Challenges and Regional Stability, ed. Paul J. Smith (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
2005), 42; Zachary Abuza, “Tentacles of Terror: Al-Qeada’s Southeast Asian Network,”
Contemporary Southeast Asia (2002), 14.
6
Turner, 388.
7
See Larry Niksch, “Abu Sayyaf: Target of Philippine-US Anti-Terrorism Cooperation,”
Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, 25 January 2002), 4;
Turner, 395-96; Abuza (2002), 14.
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