Search and destroy

Why do I have this sinking feeling that Abu Sabaya et al. won’t be caught? Because the densely forested mountains between Sibuco and Sirawai in Zamboanga del Norte, where government troops are pursuing the fleeing Abu Sayyaf, remind me of the jungles of Basilan.

I flew over the island of Basilan on a Huey helicopter on the eve of the Balikatan exercises, and wondered whether 6,000 Philippine troops backed by a thousand American soldiers with night surveillance equipment could make a difference in that jungle. The foliage was so dense I thought bombs and missiles would bounce off them. It was impossible to see anything beneath the forest cover.

Soldiers told me the usual visibility on the ground in that forest was 10 meters on a good day. Even the Americans’ heat-tracking surveillance equipment was useless in that jungle, the soldiers told me, because the equipment could not distinguish between animals and humans, much less distinguish terrorists from civilians.

For sure a number of those civilians are friends, relatives or sympathizers of the Abu Sayyaf. In a pinch, the terrorists, particularly the foot soldiers with no bounty on their heads, can easily seek refuge in civilians’ homes and blend in with the populace. The civilians, however, could not be evacuated before the start of the war games because the soldiers would be accused of "hamletting" and would have to spend the rest of their military service fighting a human rights case.

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When reports came out that the military would ring Basilan and perhaps set up a naval blockade, I happened to chat with former President Fidel Ramos, under whose administration the Abu Sayyaf started gaining notoriety. Ramos, who spent most of his life as a soldier, said he would have fired the military officer who said a cordon would be set up around Basilan.

Even if you deployed all 100,000-plus troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, they would not be able to ring Metro Manila, Ramos pointed out. And Basilan – even just the Sampinit jungle complex that serves as the Abu Sayyaf stronghold – is several times bigger than Metro Manila.

As for a naval blockade, that’s a laugh. In Zamboanga and Basilan the common military complaint was that the Abu Sayyaf, flush with cash from their hugely successful kidnapping capers, had faster boats.

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Knowing the sorry state of our armed forces does not make it easier to digest the news that as early as April, the terrorists had managed to sneak out of Basilan, take a boat ride of at least an hour and reach Zamboanga.

Looking at those night-vision goggles, spy drones and satellite tracking provided by the Americans, we had such high hopes that the end of the Abu Sayyaf was near. The most elite units of the AFP were supposed to be hunting down Sabaya and his gang. At the very least, we thought the features of those two American hostages would stand out in any group and make sneaking out of Basilan one difficult undertaking.

Well, nothing is too difficult for the Abu Sayyaf. If they can sneak into the Zamboanga peninsula, hostages in tow, they can just as easily sneak out, with no hostages to slow them down. They have been aided by heavy rain and – as the photographs have shown – that dense jungle that they know so well. They were surely aided by sympathizers along the way. Except for Sabaya, Khadaffy Janjalani and a handful of other Abu Sayyaf commanders, the faces of these terrorists are not known. Our Special Forces can’t tell the difference between an Abu Sayyaf foot soldier and a Sirawai farmer.

Search and destroy? Let’s hope this does not turn out to be nothing but search and search. As for Operation Daybreak, there are too many contradictions between the accounts of the AFP’s top brass and the soldiers who actually figured in the encounter. Certainly the military can’t admit that the soldiers in Basilan were caught napping and a roving band of troopers in Zamboanga simply chanced upon Sabaya and the hostages.

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At any rate, the denouement of the Dos Palmas crisis once again demonstrates the difficulties posed by a hostage situation. The best-equipped and best-trained units of the richest countries in the world cannot claim 100 percent success in dealing with hostage situations. You can’t compare the Sirawai encounter with the hostage situation at the Pasay bus terminal, which looked like a scene from Dumb and Dumber.

We should just follow the example of the Burnhams and thank the heavens for little blessings. Two hostages are dead, but one at least is alive despite being used as a human shield. Our soldiers who stumbled into the Abu Sayyaf band did their best, moved quickly, risked their lives, got wounded. Many of them are still out there, combing the jungles of Zamboanga for an elusive enemy.

We haven’t seen the last of Sabaya, and we surely haven’t seen the last of Janjalani, whose whereabouts have been unknown since the start of Balikatan. This problem highlights the difficulties of guerrilla warfare. It also highlights the weakness of the world’s lone superpower against determined guerrillas. The Americans, it has often been pointed out, has not won a guerrilla war. You saw what happened in Vietnam. You saw what happened in Somalia, as graphically depicted in Black Hawk Down.

The Americans are at their best when they win hearts and minds. In our case, in the 1900s, they won over our people with public education, health care and public works projects. (Later, they deployed the forces of Hollywood and we were hooked.) That’s what they’re doing now in Basilan. Maybe the GIs can still declare a measure of success in that province without going into combat.

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The latest hostage crisis is over. But we’ve seen the resiliency and tenacity of the Abu Sayyaf. All the top commanders are still out there, not to mention the gang led by Ghalib "Commander Robot" Andang (remember him?) based in Sulu.

Gracia Burnham may now be safe in Wichita, but we still have a lot of potential hostages. Secure those tourist spots, all the favorite hangouts of foreigners, all those religious missions. Set up community-based systems to protect residents from all types of terrorists and crooks. Even as they flee, you can bet Sabaya and his gang are regrouping. Unless our troops can carry out their commander-in-chief’s order to search and destroy.

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FAREWELL: We mourn the passing of Art Borjal, columnist and co-founder of The STAR. Necrological services will be held tomorrow at 9 a.m. at the Mt. Carmel Shrine in Quezon City. His remains will be cremated at 1 p.m. on the same day at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.