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Militants turn to YouTube
21/08/2007 10:01 - (SA)
Manila - Al-Qaeda-linked extremists in the Philippines have turned to the wildly popular internet video-sharing website YouTube in an apparent attempt to raise cash and recruits, the military said on Tuesday.
For the first time, two video clips from the Abu Sayyaf group, responsible for some of the worst terror attacks in the Philippines, have been posted on the site.
Military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said the clips were taken from a one-hour video that was distributed throughout the Arabic-speaking jihadist community.
He said the speakers used Arabic apparently to appeal to wealthy would-be benefactors from the Middle East.
The armed forces, which is mounting a bloody major offensive against Abu Sayyaf strongholds on the southern islands of Jolo and Basilan, dismissed the YouTube posting as an "act of desperation".
The clips showed Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Janjalani, who founded the group with money from al-Qaeda in the early 1990s, as well as younger brother and replacement Khadaffy Janjalani.
Abdurajak Janjalani was killed by security forces on Basilan in 1998 while his brother died last year on Jolo.
"This just shows the Abu Sayyaf is in disarray," Bacarro said.
"Why is it that the former leadership of the Abu Sayyaf are speaking, why not the current leadership who are asking support? Why the dead?"
The Abu Sayyaf burst on to the international scene in 2000 and 2001 with a series of spectacular kidnappings of western tourists in the Philippines and Malaysia, whom they ransomed for cash to buy weapons.
The group has also been blamed for deadly bombings, including an attack on Manila's rail system and a ferry that killed more than 100 people, the worst single act of terror in the Philippines.
- AFP
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