Narrative
Narrative of the Organization's History
Narrative of the Organization's History
Leadership, Name Changes, Size Estimates, Resources, Geographic Locations
Ideology, Aims, Political Activities, Targets, and Tactics
First Attacks, Largest Attacks, Notable Attacks
Foreign Designations and Listings, Community Relations, Relations with Other Groups, State Sponsors and External Influences
Mapping relationships with other militant groups over time in regional maps
The ASG aims to establish an independent Salafist Sunni Islamic state in the Mindanao region for the Filipino minority known as the Moros. This goal is shaped by the historical narrative of the “Bangsamoro” struggle, in which Filipino Muslims—concentrated in the southern Philippines where Muslim merchants arrived in the 1300s or earlier—have long clashed with the Spanish, American, and Filipino governments that they believe have sought to oppress them.[91]
The ASG also aims to expel the Christian settlers who migrated to Mindanao from other regions in the Philippines such as Luzon and the Visayas. These Christian settlers began migrating to the southern Philippines with government encouragement in the 1910s; they now comprise 75% of the region.[92]
Despite the ASG’s stated goals, the organization has shown signs of becoming motivated more by material gain than by ideological struggle. For a time, some analysts and officials began likening the ASG to a criminal gang.[93] It’s unclear whether the group’s recent dedication to IS is motivated by the material and social support it gives them, or by genuine belief. Most likely, it is some undefinable combination of both motivations.[94]
The ASG has never engaged in peace talks or any other form of nonviolent political activity. It specifically promotes armed struggle as the means of achieving an independent Moro state.[95] The ASG has conducted attacks to destabilize ceasefire agreements and discourage peace negotiations between the government and the MILF.[96] In July 2014 on the island of Jolo, the ASG killed at least 21 Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan, reportedly in retaliation for their support of the peace process.[97]
As part of its struggle for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines, the ASG emphasizes the targeting of Philippine military forces, foreigners, and Christians. The ASG also targets a much larger variety of individuals, including local politicians, business people, and ordinary Filipinos.
The ASG has used such tactics as assassinations, armed attacks, beheadings, bombings, murder, robbery, kidnappings, and monetary extortion of businesses and individuals. While the ASG conducted several high-profile political bombings in the early 2000s, kidnapping for ransom is the ASG’s current major activity, and the ASG seems to use this tactic with little regard for ideology. The rise of the ASG’s profit-driven criminal activities, coupled with the decline of clearly political attacks like mass bombings, suggests a shift from a principally religious or ideological rationale to material motivations.[98]
Disclaimer: These are some selected major attacks in the militant organization’s history. It is not a comprehensive listing but captures some of the most famous attacks or turning points during the campaign.
April 4, 1991: The ASG conducted a grenade attack in Zamboanga City, killing two U.S. Christian evangelists. (2 killed, unknown wounded).[99]
August 1991: The ASG bombed a Christian missionary ship, M/V Doulos. (2 killed, 40 wounded).[100]
April 14, 1995: The ASG attacked the Christian town of Ipil. (53 killed, 48 wounded, ~30 hostages).[101]
April 23, 2000: The ASG conducted its first attack in Malaysia, kidnapping twenty-one people from a tourist resort in Sipadan. These hostages were all released or escaped. (0 killed, unknown wounded, 21 hostages).[102]
May 27, 2001: ASG gunmen kidnapped tourists, including three Americans, from the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan. Six days later, ASG members brought at least some of these hostages to a hospital in Lamitan, where they took more hostages, resulting in Philippine troops laying siege to the hospital.[103] After the kidnapping, the U.S. and the Philippines conducted massive military operations against the ASG in an attempt to rescue the hostages. Some hostages escaped or were released while others—including two of the Americans—were killed. (2 killed, unknown wounded, 20 hostages).[104]
March 4, 2003: A bomb exploded in a shed outside the main terminal building of the Davao International Airport. An ASG spokesman called a national radio station the following day, claiming responsibility for the attack. (21 killed, 148 wounded).[105]
February 27, 2004: A member of the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), a group closely tied to the ASG, detonated a bomb on Superferry 14, a passenger ferry carrying 900 passengers out of Manila. The ASG claimed responsibility for planning the attack, which was confirmed by a subsequent government investigation. The Superferry 14 bombing was the Philippines' deadliest terrorist attack and the world's deadliest terrorist attack at sea. (116 killed, unknown wounded).[106]
February 14, 2005: ASG operatives simultaneously detonated two bombs in Mindanao’s General Santos City and Davao City, closely followed by a third bomb in Makati City. These attacks became known as the "Valentine's Day Bombings,” after the ASG’s Abu Sulaiman claimed that the bombs were a "gift" to then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. (8 killed, 147 wounded).[107]
November 13, 2007: A bomb outside the Philippine House of Representatives killed a congressman and two congressional employees. This operation was attributed to the ASG and was the first bombing attack on the Philippine Congress. (3 killed, 11 wounded).[108]
May 23, 2017 – October 17, 2017: Armed ASG and Maute group fighters overtook a hospital in Marawi City, marking the beginning of a 5-month long siege of the city.The military reported total casualties of 163 government troops, 57 civilians and 847 militants . A count of 359,680 people were reported to be displaced during this conflict. (1067 killed, unknown wounded)[109]
January 27, 2019: Two bombs were detonated at a Roman Catholic cathedral during Sunday Mass, killing 21 people and injuring “dozens more.”[110] IS took credit for this attack. (21 killed, “dozens” injured).[111]
June 28, 2019, 2019: Two suicide bombers carried out an attack outside a military camp in Jolo. One of the bombers, Norman Lasuca, is considered the first “homegrown” Filipino suicide bomber. The attack killed the two bombers, three soldiers, and two civilians, and wounded 22 others. (7 killed, 22 wounded).[112]
Public support for the ASG across the Philippines is limited, with most Filipinos condemning the group’s activities. The ASG does enjoy some support from Muslims in Mindanao’s Jolo and Basilan regions, but this support has declined in response to the ASG’s violent tactics.[119] Moderate Muslim leaders similarly reject the group.[120] The ASG relies on its members’ families, friends, and other ties to the community for local support and recruitment, and it also channels funds to local communities to augment support.[121] ASG operatives blend easily into the surrounding populations, complicating government operations against them.[122]
From the beginning, AQ materially and ideologically influenced the ASG. Abdurajak Janjalani’s relationship with Osama bin Laden shaped Janjalani’s decision to establish the ASG and led to its affiliation with AQ.[123] Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden’s brother-in-law and a wealthy Saudi businessman, further strengthened the affiliation by supporting the ASG financially and logistically during the group’s early stages.[124] In the early 1990s, AQ member Ramzi Yousef traveled to the Philippines several times and allegedly provided training for the ASG, becoming one of several foreign AQ members to cooperate with the ASG in training operatives and plotting attacks.[125]
The ASG’s relationship with AQ weakened in the mid-1990s after the Philippines barred Khalifa from entering the country and Yousef was arrested in Pakistan. The extent of the ASG-AQ relationship after the mid-1990s remains unclear, although a 2000 Philippine military intelligence report alleged that Al Qaeda had still given the ASG training, weapons, and other support.[126]
Today, the ASG-AQ relationship may have been effectively ended by the ASG’s potential new link to IS, a prominent Al Qaeda rival. On July 23, 2014, ASG leader Isnilon Hapilon and a group of unidentified men pledged allegiance to IS and to IS leader Baghdadi in a YouTube video. In another video released days later, a group of men identifying themselves as ASG members also pledged allegiance to IS and Baghdadi.[127] In September 2014, the ASG threatened the lives of two German hostages, demanding that Germany pay a ransom and rescind its support for U.S. attacks on IS.[128]
However, most scholars and officials believe that the ASG has pledged allegiance to IS solely to promote its own interests, rather than those of IS.[129] The ASG had initially demanded only a ransom for the German hostages, and in October 2014, it released the hostages and reported that a ransom had been paid; yet, there was no reported change in German policy toward U.S. attacks on IS.[130] Beyond the oath of allegiance videos, no links between the ASG and IS have been demonstrated. IS does not seem to have given funds or other material support to the ASG nor acknowledged its oath of allegiance.[131]
In concrete terms of material support and operational cooperation, the ASG has the strongest ties with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional Islamist militant group, from which it receives funds, logistical support, and training.[132] Some Southeast Asian military analysts say that JI and the ASG are so intertwined that they virtually function as a single organization, especially in the area of the Sulu Archipelago.[133]
The ASG’s relationship with its fellow Filipino separatist groups is more ambiguous, although the MNLF and the MILF both officially condemn the ASG and its tactics. The ASG was originally a faction of the MNLF that broke away in the 1990s, just as the MILF began as an offshoot of the MNLF in the 1970s.[134] Of the Philippines’ three Islamic separatist groups, the ASG is the smallest and most extreme. Unlike the MNLF and the MILF, the ASG has never engaged in peace talks with the Philippine government. Instead, the ASG has conducted attacks to undermine current peace negotiations between the government and the MILF, which is larger and stronger than the ASG.[135] The MNLF still officially denounces the ASG, even though both groups oppose the current negotiations from which they are excluded. In 2013, MNLF chairman Nur Misuari condemned the ASG’s terrorization of Sulu, where the MNLF is headquartered, and announced his intention to rid the area of the ASG’s criminal activities.[136] In 2020, Misuari turned ASG sub-leader Susukan over to the Philippine National Police.[137]
There are, however, signs of collaboration between the ASG, the MNLF, and the MILF on an individual level. The three groups have overlapping memberships, shared operational areas, and the common goal of establishing an independent Moro state This suggests the possibility of cooperation among lower-level operatives or individual commanders, despite the organizations’ official positions. Cooperation is especially likely between the ASG and the other groups’ more extreme or dissatisfied members, who, like the ASG, reject all peace talks and autonomy agreements negotiated with the Philippine government. Some of those extreme or dissatisfied members have also gone on to join the ASG.[138]
The ASG may have been secretly supported by Libya during the rule of Muammar el-Qaddafi. Qaddafi had previously demonstrated support for the Moro separatist movement in general, for example by sending funds and arms to the MILF.[139] Acting as negotiator, Libya was instrumental in securing the August 2000 release of six hostages who were kidnapped by the ASG, including three French citizens, a German and a South African. In return for the release, a charitable foundation led by Qaddafi’s son gave $25 million in supposed development aid to the Philippines’ southern region, although this money may have actually gone to the ASG.[140] Additionally, despite claims that no ransom was ever given, Qaddafi himself may have paid the ASG $6 million for the six hostages.[141] While Libya officially denounced the ASG’s kidnapping operations, the ASG reportedly received Libyan money multiple times during Qaddafi’s rule, under the guise of charitable or humanitarian donations. Mosques and Islamic schools in the region also received Libyan money.[142]
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