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minimum of 100 to a maximum of 3000. 8 ASG members are picked from a
restricted and specific ethno-linguistic group (mainly the Tausogs and some
Yakans). Thus, it operates on the basis of the cultural values of the majority
group, in this case, the Tausog’s violence-prone culture. 9 This policy does limit
ASG’s ability to recruit Muslims from other ethnic groups, however, internal
cohesion and coordination are facilitated by trust, shared values, and norms
drawn on the narrow basis of tribal kinship.
ASG’s principal objective is to unify “all sectors of the predominantly Muslim
provinces in the [southern Philippines] and establish an Islamic state governed
by the Sharia in that region, a state where Muslims can follow Islam in its purest
10
and strictest form as the only path to Allah.” In some ways, this goal overlaps
with the aim of MNLF and its more radical offshoot, the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF). 11 Indeed, ASG, MNLF, and MILF have long competed for
8
Jeffrey Bale, “The Abu Sayyaf Group in its Philippine and International Contexts,”
(Unpublished monograph, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of
International Studies, date unknown), 32. See also Niksch, 2-3.
9
Bale, 25-27.
10
Ibid., 34.
11
Bale, 34. The MILF is an offshoot resulting from a leadership split within the MNLF. This
breakaway group was headed by the late Hashim Salamat. In contrast to the MNLF’s call for a
Moro nation (bangsa), the MILF espouses Islam as the basis of its struggle against the Philippine
state. Unlike the secular goal of the MNLF, the MILF pursues for the establishment an Islamic
state in southern Philippines. The MILF advocates a four-point program of Islamization,
organizational strengthening, military build up, and economic self-sufficiency. The MILF, under
Salamat, emphasizes its Islamic orientation in terms of goals, organizational structure, armed
struggle, and links with the external world. While the MNLF draws most of its supporters from
the Tausogs of the Sulu Archipelago, the MILF is mostly made up of Maguindanaos, and Iranun
ethnic groups, and some Maranaos. Prior to its capture by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in
July 2000, the MILF made Camp Abubakar into a self-contained and fortified Islamic community
with a mosque, a religious school, a military training camp, an arms factory, a solar power
source, sophisticated communication equipment, family housing, markets, a fruit nursery, and
agricultural plots. The camp served as a model, living showcase of an Islamic state and society
that the MILF eventually hopes to establish throughout Mindanao. The Philippine government
estimates that the MILF has some 12,000 current armed members—many of them could be
potential recruits for any transnational terrorist groups like JI or al-Qa’ida. Given its present
military strength, large popular support base, control of “liberated areas” in Mindanao, and close
operational links with al-Qa’ida and JI, the MILF is poised as a potent threat to the Philippine
government and to the U.S.
Although the MILF has been accused collaborating with Southeast Asian transnational terrorist
groups, including the JI and the Abu Sayyaf, the group’s leadership has denied the charge,
maintaining since 2002 that the organization has cut off ties with all terrorist groups to pave the
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