Filipino Muslim Rebels Tied to Afghan War

Sept. 24 -- Like many international terrorists, the Abu Sayyaf group has its origins in the 1979-89 jihad or "holy war" to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan.

Influenced by Wahabism, an ultra-conservative form of Islam that dates from mid-18th century and espoused by the Saudi royal family, the Abu Sayyaf is known to have ties with many Muslim causes.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Filipino investigators have renewed their efforts to crack down on the Abu Sayyaf and their links to the operations of indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The Philippine military today announced it had arrested Mohammed Faisal Dompol Ijajil, a suspected Abu Sayyaf supply chief with suspected links to bin Laden.

Speaking at a news conference in Manila, marine brigade commander Colonel Renato Miranda told reporters Ijajil would be interrogated "on all angles," including any links with bin Laden.

Ijajil was arrested on the southern Filipino island of Basilan last week as a suspect in a murder connected with the Abu Sayyaf, Miranda said.

Deadly University

Abu Sayyaf was the last of the seven main Afghan guerrilla groups to be formed, and organized late in the Afghan war with the Soviets— only about three years before the Soviets withdrew.

Abu Sayyaf, which means "father of the sword" in Arabic, was founded in 1986 by an Afghan professor named Abdul Rasul Abu Sayyaf.

Some of the original veterans of the Afghan jihad, and their sons and grandsons and those trained by them, have been operating with destructive effect since the 1980s from Egypt and the Philippines to Algeria and New York.

As the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1989, the CIA's powerful Pakistani partner, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate) found itself losing control of the Afghan fighting groups.

Although the ISI continued to train and equip some for warfare against India in Kashmir and Punjab provinces, Abu Sayyaf had also established a "university," north of Peshawar, Pakistani , to train terrorists in the methods taught by the CIA and ISI.