Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines, largely written off as a crippled force after a US-backed offensive killed its top two leaders, have tried to shatter that image with a signature act of terror.
An Abu Sayyaf faction led by a young commander, Albader Parad, beheaded seven men the group kidnapped days ago and had their heads delivered by civilians to the doors of two army detachments on volatile southern Jolo island on Thursday, the military said.
While the grisly act appears to be aimed at avenging the death of an Abu Sayyaf commander in a clash with troops and nonpayment of a ransom demand. It was also an attempt to drive a stake in the heart of high-profile US and Philippine efforts to portray Jolo as a land rapidly emerging from decades of lawlessness and violence.
Washington has made huge investments on Jolo, about 960km south of Manila, with civic projects meant to win hearts and minds on an island that still recalls the massacre by US occupation forces of hundreds of Tausug natives in a pacification campaign nearly a century ago.
Forbidden from joining local combat by the Philippine constitution, the US military has deployed troops to train and arm the underfunded Philippine military and often flies its P3 Orion spy planes to help track insurgents hiding in Jolo's vast tropical jungles.
The combination, along with a massive Philippine military offensive called "Oplan Ultimatum," delivered lethal blows to the Abu Sayyaf.
Last September, US-trained Filipino troops fatally wounded Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and later shot to death presumed successor Abu Sulaiman -- shattering the image of invincibility of the militants, who had survived countless US-backed assaults in the last few years.
Family affair
Janjalani's death closed an era of militancy from his locally prominent family. A brother founded the Abu Sayyaf in the late 1980s before he was killed. Another sibling, also an Abu Sayyaf member, is in prison after being convicted of helping kidnap a US citizen.
Battle setbacks drove more than 300 Abu Sayyaf remnants, split into at least six factions, along with a few Indonesian terror suspects deeper into the jungle and provided a months-long respite from violence in Jolo's townships.
US troops rushed road and school repairs. Open-air cafes opened even at night in Jolo town, where just a few years ago all stores shut in late afternoon for fear of violence. The upbeat military declared the Abu Sayyaf's days were numbered.
The gruesome beheadings of six road project workers and a dried-fish factory worker served as a reality check.
Jolo Governor Ben Loong suspended many road repair and other public works projects and went on radio yesterday to calm jittery Jolo residents. There was a new round of government saber rattling.
"Abu Sayyaf's acts of terror will not go unpunished. Our troops are committed to the singular objective of obliteration," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said.
Outside a Jolo hospital morgue where the decapitated heads and bodies were brought, laborers gingerly hammered together wooden coffins as some villagers watched. The remains of the workers, all Christians, were to be shipped to their residences in nearby Zamboanga city, Loong said.
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