Abu Sayyaf a spent force, new group could take ove

Abu Sayyaf a spent force, new group could take ove

Cecil Morella, Agence France-Presse, Manila

Abu Sayyaf rebels are a spent force after a U.S.-Philippines
military operation, but the conditions that bred them could just
as easily bring forth a new Southeast Asian "terror" group, an
American diplomat said on Monday.

"We don't think there's much left in them," U.S. ambassador to
Manila Francis Ricciardone said, speaking two weeks before a
1,000-member U.S. military advisory mission pulls out of the
southern Philippines following a six-month joint campaign against
the Moro rebel group.

"They've been much diminished in terms of whatever formality
and organization they had. At least one of its five principal
leaders has been killed, the others are on the run. The numbers
of fighters clearly are much diminished," he told reporters.

But the remnants of the group "remain to be mopped up" from
among a substantial base of support among relatives in the Muslim
areas of the south.

Ricciardone also warned that "the conditions from which they
sprang from need to be addressed -- the poverty, the poor
environment, the joblessness, the hopelessness in which they work
and within which they terrorize their own communities."

It must be "addressed and cleaned up, otherwise there are
people like them who will continue to take their places. So the
story is not over, the job is not done."

The Abu Sayyaf, a group of several hundred loosely organized
Moro guerrilla groups with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda network
of Osama bin Laden, had terrorized the southern Philippines with
a three-year campaign of kidnappings for ransom.

A senior Abu Sayyaf leader, Abu Sabaya, was believed slain in
a Philippine military operation last month following the rescue
of U.S. hostage Gracia Burnham.

The rescue attempt left her husband, Martin Burnham, and
Filipina captive Ediborah Yap dead. The gunmen had beheaded a
third American captive, Guillermo Sobero, last year.

Ricciardone warned that the al-Qaeda infrastructure in the
region remained intact.

While links between the al-Qaeda, the group held responsible
for the Sept.11 attacks in the U.S., and militant groups in
Southeast Asia like Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah are "loose"
and "tenuous," he said "the network is there."

Manila this year separately sentenced to long prison terms two
Indonesian militants accused of bomb attacks.

"Having people come here or training people outside or
providing funds or providing (training) on how to make bombs and
where to place them, those kinds of things seem to be going on,"
Ricciardone said.

The U.S. also suspects that the al-Qaeda network has gotten
through to disaffected members of the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF), the main Muslim separatist guerrilla group that
signed a cease-fire with the Philippine government last year.

The envoy said the U.S. "will keep a small presence" in the
southern Philippines "at least until October, perhaps beyond,"
and continue joint military training exercises with Filipino
troops. The next training program is scheduled in the south in
October.