Via Gulf Times (Qatar) -
MANILA: The Philippine Armed Forces plan to ask the management of the popular Internet video-sharing website YouTube to remove two video clips of Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels seeking funds and support, military spokesmen said yesterday.
The video clips about the rebel group, responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines, were posted as the military stepped up offensives on its strongholds in the southern province of Basilan and nearby Jolo island.
“We would try to make some effort to address the website management to stop this,” Marine Corp spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Caculitan said.
Caculitan said YouTube might be unwittingly spreading the terrorist doctrines of the Abu Sayyaf by allowing the videos to be shown. “These are considered terrorists, and by allowing ... the terrorists to get support from other people or groups globally, it’s not a good thing for us,” he admitted.
The Armed Forces earlier dismissed the YouTube posting as an “act of desperation.”
According to Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro, chief of the military’s public information office, the clips were taken from a one-hour video. The speakers used Arabic in an apparent attempt to appeal to wealthy would-be benefactors from the Middle East.
The clips showed Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Janjalani 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.
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Abu Sayyaf is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Dept. Abu Sayyaf commonly uses kidnapping as a way to collect ransom payments. Most of its victims are Filipinos, but has attacked Americans as well.
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