The Philippine franchise of al-Qaeda took a heavy blow yesterday, as the government announced that it had killed one of the leaders of Abu Sayyaf. If confirmed, the terrorists will have lost their leader and chief organizer within a span of weeks:

The Philippines said on Wednesday that troops had killed the top planner of the country's most deadly Islamic militant group in a clash at a rebel jungle camp in the southwest.

Abu Sulaiman, one of the top five leaders of the Abu Sayyaf militant group and who is believed to have links with al Qaeda, was killed in a gunbattle on Tuesday on the island of Jolo, military chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon told reporters.

"We are confident that with the death of Sulaiman, who is actually the number one planner, most of the activities of the Abu Sayyaf will continue to go down," Esperon said.

Late last month, the military said Abu Sayyaf chief Khaddafy Janjalani might have been killed in September and sent tissue from a decomposing body found on Jolo for forensic tests.

In the extended areas of the radical Islamic jihad, retreat seems to be the order of the day. AQ-related Islamists in Somalia have fled in a rout and are getting picked off a few at a time as they try to escape to Kenya and points beyond. Abu Sayyaf has lost its leadership and finds itself mostly trapped on one island in the Philippine chain. Even in Baghdad, the AQ elements appear to be redeploying over an event horizon as a reaction to a bigger commitment by the US to smoking out the terrorists.

One of the key elements for terrorists to prevail is a notion of invincibility -- that their willingness to martyr themselves make them unbeatable. Western societies tend to play into that aura with their efforts to negotiate with terrorists and their unwillingness to commit to total war against them. Ethiopia showed that a sustained military effort can end what looks to be an intractable terrorist grip on a nation, and the Filipinos have shown that tenacity pays dividends.

When people realize that civilized nations will treat terrorists as a pestilence and not as acceptable political entities, terrorism will decline rapidly. When leaders and supporters of terrorism start getting killed for their use of terrorist proxies, then terrorism will dry up altogether. Once we remove all of the incentives for terrorism, the market will disappear.

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» Another blow to Inslamists from Stix Blog
Anotehr blow to the ISlamists in the the Phillipines. In just weeks Abu Sayyaf has lost their leader and lead planner. This is a big blow to the Al Queda affiliated terrorist group. H/T to Captain's Quarters Philippines says Abu [Read More]

Tracked on January 17, 2007 9:15 AM

» Biting the Dust? from Giopolitics
While most of the US focuses on the daily grind in Iraq and in US domestic politics pertaining to Iraq, the war against Al Qaeda goes on around the world. The Washington Post carries the story from the AP: A top al-Qaida-linked militant, long wanted by... [Read More]

Tracked on January 17, 2007 9:33 AM

» Top Abu Sayyaf terrorist Dead from The Jawa Report
That’s very good news! [Read More]

Tracked on January 17, 2007 12:58 PM