MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — The Abu Sayyaf was on Monday accused of murdering a Canadian hostage abducted nearly nine months ago, the latest in a long line of atrocities by the Islamic militant group based in the southern Philippines.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had “compelling reasons to believe” that Robert Hall had been murdered.
Hall would be the second Canadian killed this year by the Abu Sayyaf, which has terrorised the region with a trail of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings since the 1990s.
The following is a timeline of the Abu Sayyaf’s rise and rampage:
— Early 1990s: Libya-trained preacher Abdurajak Janjalani forms the Abu Sayyaf (Bearer of the Sword) with young Muslims disaffected by an older generation of guerrillas.
The group receives seed money from a local charity run by Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
— April 4, 1995: Hundreds of its gunmen sack the southern town of Ipil, leaving more than 50 people dead.
— December 18, 1998: Janjalani is killed in a clash with security forces on the island of Basilan and is replaced by younger brother, Khadaffy Janjalani, who is killed in September 2006.
— April 23, 2000: The group makes its first known foreign sortie, snatching 10 Western tourists and 11 Asians from island resort of Sipadan off Malaysian Borneo.
The hostages are freed in August 2001, with the Westerners flown to Tripoli aboard a jet sent by then Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who is said to have paid millions of dollars in ransom.
— May 27, 2001: Three Americans are among 20 people snatched from a western Philippine island resort. One of them, tourist Guillermo Sobero, is beheaded 13 months later. Most of the local hostages are ransomed off.
One of the other Americans, Christian missionary Martin Burnham, and a Filipina hostage are killed in a military operation in June 2002. But Burnham’s wife is rescued.
— February 27, 2004: The Abu Sayyaf firebombs a ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116 people in the country’s deadliest terrorist attack.
— July 10, 2007: The Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebels kill 14 Filipino marines on Basilan, beheading 10 of them.
— December 5, 2011: The Abu Sayyaf abducts Australian ex-soldier Warren Rodwell at his southern Philippine home. He is freed unharmed in March 2013 after a reported ransom of nearly $100,000 is paid.
— February 1, 2012: Two bird watchers, a Dutchman and a Swiss, are abducted in the Tawi-Tawi island group. The Swiss man escapes in December 2014.
— April 25, 2014: German couple Stefan Okonek and Henrike Dielen are abducted from a yacht off the western island of Palawan. The couple are ransomed off six months later.
— Mid-2014: Isnilon Hapilon, who has a $5-million bounty on his head from the US government, becomes the first of several senior Abu Sayyaf leaders to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State group holding vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.
— May 14, 2015: Malaysian tourist Bernard Then and restaurant manager Thien Nyuk Fun are seized in the Malaysian port of Sandakan. The woman is released in November, reportedly after a ransom was paid, but the man is beheaded.
— September 21, 2015: Canadian tourists John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad, and Hall’s Filipina girlfriend are seized from yachts docked at a resort on Samal island, hundreds of kilometres from Abu Sayyaf strongholds. The Abu Sayyaf demands ransoms of many millions of dollars.
— October 7, 2015: Retired Italian priest Rolando Del Torchio is kidnapped at his pizza restaurant in the southern city of Dipolog, also far from Abu Sayyaf strongholds. He is freed unharmed on April 9 this year.
— March 26, 2016: Abu Sayyaf kidnappings spread to the high seas with 14 Indonesians and four Malaysians seized in three border-water incidents in March and April. All 18 sailors are freed between May and June.
— April 25, 2016: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounces the “cold-blooded murder” of Ridsdel hours after the decapitated Canadian hostage’s head is dumped outside city hall on the Abu Sayyaf’s Jolo island stronghold.
— June 13, 2016: Less than two months after Ridsdel’s death, Trudeau announces it was likely Hall had been killed by his captors after a new ransom deadline lapsed.
bur-ajm/cgm/kma/ds
© 1994-2016 Agence France-Presse
