ABU SAYYAF GROUP

QDe.001
ABU SAYYAF GROUP
Date on which the narrative summary became available on the Committee's website: 
7 April 2011
Date(s) on which the narrative summary was updated: 
3 February 2015
18 January 2018
Reason for listing: 

The Abu Sayyaf Group was listed on 6 October 2001 pursuant to paragraph 8(c) of resolution 1333 (2000) as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to” or “otherwise supporting acts or activities of” Al-Qaida (QDe.004).

Additional information: 

The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) was founded in the early 1990s by Abdurajak Janjalani. It was formed from the more militant elements of the Moro National Liberation Front, an established separatist movement in the southern Philippines. ASG is based in the southern Philippines, primarily the Sulu archipelago, Tawi Tawi, Basilan and Mindanao. Members also occasionally travel to Manila. ASG often resorts to criminal activity, including murders, bombings, extortion and kidnap for ransom both for financial profit and to promote its agenda.

Abdurajak Janjalani was killed in a clash with Philippine police in December 1998. His younger brother replaced him as the leader of the group and was killed in a gun battle with the Armed Forces of the Philippines in September 2006. Then Radulan Sahiron (QDi.208) became the new ASG leader.

ASG has links to Al-Qaida (QDe.004) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) (QDe.092), and ASG members have been trained by both organizations in guerrilla warfare, military operations and bomb making. Usama bin Laden’s (deceased) brother-in-law, Mohammad Jammal Khalifa, used an organization to channel funds to ASG to pay for training and arms.

ASG has been involved in a number of terrorist attacks, including assassinations; bombing civilian and military establishments and domestic infrastructure, including airports and ferries; kidnapping local officials and foreign tourists; beheading local and foreign hostages; and extortion against local and foreign businesses. For example:

  • in April 2000, an ASG group kidnapped 21 people from a Malaysian holiday resort;
  • in May 2001, ASG members kidnapped three American citizens and 17 Filipinos from a resort in Palawan, Philippines. They later murdered several of the hostages;
  • on 27 February 2004, ASG members bombed a ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116;
  • on 14 February 2005, ASG members carried out simultaneous bombings in the cities of Manila, General Santos, and Davao, killing at least eight and injuring about 150;
  • in 2006,  a group under the ASG leader relocated to Sulu, where it joined forces with local ASG supporters who provided shelter to fugitive JI members from Indonesia;
  • in July 2007, ASG and Moro Islamic Liberation Front members fought Philippine marines on Basilan Island, killing 14;
  • in November 2007, a motorcycle bomb exploded outside the Philippine Congress, killing a Congressman and three staff members. While there was no definitive claim of responsibility, three suspected ASG members were arrested during a subsequent raid on a safe-house;
  • in January 2009, ASG kidnapped three International Red Cross workers in Sulu province, holding one of the hostages for six months.