Luwaran | 23 January 2010

Terror suspect Basset Usman really dead?

MILF does not rejoice at people’s death

January 23, 2010 – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has first heard of a news of Abdulbasset Usman’s death from the Associated Press report published in Pakistan on January 21, when one of the local papers carried a news item saying that a Filipino militant wanted by the United States is believed to have been killed in an American drone strike last January 14.

The US is waging war against the Talibans in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it was on the latter front that Usman was reported to have been involved and killed.

The U.S. State Department’s list of most-wanted terrorists identifies Usman, who carried a $500,000 reward on his head, as a bomb-making expert with links to the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf militant group and the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah network.

However, the MILF has not verified the veracity of the report, but said it will require its intelligence community to validate it soon.

The MILF said Usman has never been a member of the MILF but his brother, Ustadz Mohiden Usman, was, attached to the da’wah (Islamic call) committee of the MILF. Mohiden was arrested by government operatives on unknown charges in General Santos City in 2004, but was never heard of since. He was suspected to be summarily executed by the military. Abdulbasset, a very young man then, took the law into its own hand and started to avenge his brother’s death – and he found the ways to do it by joining one radical Moro group in Mindanao which has links with the global Al-Qaeda movement. He was, however, arrested by government troops about five years ago, jailed, and later escaped under mysterious circumstances. He was even suspected to have been made a military asset.

Meanwhile, the MILF central leadership took exception to a news item in the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated January 23 filed by Allan Nawal saying that the MILF is “happy and welcomes the death of Basset Usman”.

“The MILF has never adopted a policy of cheering the death of people, even of the harshest criminals or ‘terrorists’; but certainly, we welcome the death of anyone after a due process by a credible body has been done that such criminal deserved such fate,” said a member of the MILF Central Committee, who requested anonymity.

He said in the case of Usman, if report is true, he was in full combat gear with the Talibans in Pakistan and if he died there, then it is the natural consequence of being in combat.

“Combatants go to battle to kill and get killed.”

He also stressed that the MILF’s stand is to disdain, oppose, and dissociate itself completely from ‘terrorists’ and terrorism, saying the pursuit of its political objectives is based on jihadic and revolutionary principles.

Jihad, which means “utmost striving following the rules of engagement in Islam”, has never assumed the form of terrorism. Only the pseudo-jihadists and the Western media are the ones responsible for distorting the true concept of jihad, which has never changed since 1400 years ago during the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon).

Source: Luwaran

See Also:
MILF denies links with slain bomber (Philippines Star 24 Jan 2010)
US drone ‘kills Filipino militant Abdul Basit Usman’ (BBC 22 Jan 2010)
Filipino Militant Killed by U.S. Missile in Pakistan (Fox News 21 Jan 2010)
Wanted Filipino militant killed in drone attack (Dawn 21 Jan 2010)
Filipino militant killed by US missile in Pakistan (The Hindu 21 Jan 2010)