Word: milf
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...still just the beginning of a difficult battle to root out terrorism in the Philippines, a task that is further complicated by the predominantly Catholic country's longstanding warfare against two other terrorist groups: Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic gang of kidnappers, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a homegrown Muslim separatist organization in Mindanao with some 12,500 members. While attempting to harass Abu Sayyaf into extinction, Arroyo has also been trying to end years of bloodshed by negotiating a peace treaty with the MILF...
...peace negotiations have been made more fragile by assertions that Mindanao is JI's principle training ground and bolt-hole. Evidence from the several hundred JI operatives arrested and interrogated in the region over the past two years indicates that the MILF has maintained close links with JI?including offering training facilities for hundreds of its recruits?almost since JI's inception in the mid-1990s. JI's alleged former operations chief Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, made this clear to his interrogators after his Aug. 11 capture. "Large numbers of Indonesian members of Jemaah Islamiah are hiding in the Philippines...
...MILF, however, has consistently denied any links with JI. "JI is a germ," is how MILF negotiator Michael Mastura put it to TIME. "Why should we allow ourselves to become infected?" Mastura says statements made by JI detainees like Hambali, which occur under the extreme duress of interrogation, aren't credible. Moreover, the MILF promised a year-and-a-half ago to cut all ties with foreign and local terrorists as part of the peace negotiations. Since then, the Philippine government has skirted the subject of JI's presence in Mindanao. "We give our MILF brethren the benefit...
...peace, no stability in Mindanao, there will be no chance for the whole country to progress," says Parouk Hussin, governor of an autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao established 13 years ago after his guerrilla group reached an agreement with the government. With peace talks between Manila and the MILF scheduled to restart within weeks, the government is trying to prevent a rift that would scupper the negotiations...
DIED. HASHIM SALAMAT, 61, founder and leader of the 25-year-old, 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); of a heart attack; "somewhere in Mindanao," according to the rebel group. News of Salamat's death remained secret for over three weeks, during which the Philippine government signed a cease-fire with the group to clear the way for peace talks in Kuala Lumpur. Salamat is credited with bridging the nationalist and pan-Islamic elements within the MILF. Three weeks before he died, he formally renounced terrorism, a condition for attending the talks. He is succeeded by former deputy...