Militants rely on kidnapping to survive

WITH funding from the Middle East drying up and a decade of US- backed military pressure taking a toll, Islamic militants in Mindanao in southern Philippines are relying on kidnapping for their survival, according to experts.

The kidnapping- for- ransom stings offer the militants a vital source of income, with the best targets the brave or foolhardy foreigners who ignore travel warnings and drift into the most lawless parts of the South, the experts say.

The dangers were highlighted on Wednesday when two European men on a bird- watching trip were kidnapped on remote islands where the al Qaeda- linked Abu Sayyaf and other militant groups are known to operate.

Their abductions bring to seven the number of foreigners believed to be being held by militants in Mindanao, with one of them— an elderly Japanese man— not heard of since the middle of 2010.

“They ( the militants) look at these foreigners as potential hostages and walking dollars,” said Rommel Banlaoi, the executive director of the Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, a Manila- based think- tank.

But while the kidnappings of foreigners often grab the headlines, many more Filipinos are abducted then quietly released after ransoms are paid.

The Abu Sayyaf carries out most of the kidnappings of foreigners, although smaller gangs are also known to snatch targets and sell them to the militants, according to Banlaoi and other security experts.

Banlaoi said that, based on his group’s study, about 90 percent of the Abu Sayyaf’s funding was now sourced from kidnapping and extortion activities.

Ransom payments are then used to buy more arms, pay off members, hire recruits or bribe community elders to turn a blind eye to their crimes.

“They have simply realized that kidnap- for- ransom activities is an enterprise to finance their movement,” said Banlaoi, one of the few security analysts to have visited the militants in their strongholds.

The Abu Sayyaf first carried out mass abductions in the 1990s, and in the early part of the following decade launched kidnapping raids that netted them dozens of local, European and American hostages.

The militants’ beheaded several of their hostages when ransoms were not paid, including an American.

The Abu Sayyaf’s brazenness, however, made the group a prime target in the Us-led global war on terror.

A rotating force of 600 US Special Forces was deployed to southern Philippines at the beginning of 2002 to help train local troops in dealing with the militant threat.

The campaign has had many highprofile successes, including the killing of a range of Abu Sayyaf leaders.