The Islamic/jihadi rebellion of Noor Miswari, preceded by a generation years other Islamic rebellions and in many respects is considered to be told by the Islamic extremists wherever they are there, as a story of success and sacrifice that serves as an example for every jihadi Muslim warrior or even martyrdom.
Yoram Mizrachi
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The legend told in recent years in the jungles of the southern Philippines, says that in 1971 a rebel commander stood by the grave of his father, who was a respected clergyman. The young Muslim leader, who is the heart of the legend, was an Ayatollah, Ma's Nurulaji, known "by the name of the warrior" who chose for himself "Konor Misuari".
According to the legends, the young Nur swore "not to rest until the Moro nation is freed from the yoke of the infidel Christian-Catholic government" from the late XNUMXs, he led a new guerilla and terrorist organization, called the "Moro National Liberation Front" MNLF.
Noor's Islamic/Jihadist rebellion, preceded by generations other Islamic rebellions and in many respects is considered to be told by the Islamic extremists wherever they are there, as a story of success and sacrifice that serves as an example for every warrior - Muslim Jihadi or even martyrdom. In the years when Osama bin Ladin was engaged in engineering studies and business development, for example, and then went to Afghanistan, the Noor Rebellion was a bloody war. Government officials in Manila say today that the cost of the rebellion, in human lives, exceeded the 120000 mark and estimated that the damage caused to the infrastructure exceeded the 39 billion dollar line. The numbers are more or less the same as those accumulated today in Algeria, where a widespread Islamic rebellion continues, led by the Salafi movement to preach and fight. Another, but similar, guerilla war, which also does not receive headlines, despite the fact that it is being waged close to Europe.
The ideology and methods that Noor instilled in his followers and organizations that withdrew or were affected, included intimidation and terror in the form of public executions, mainly by beheading or amputation, acts that over the years have been used as atrocious measures, originating in Iraq through Pakistan to the Caucasus and Chechnya. Nur, who in his vision saw a great Islamic state, a caliphate that would extend over part of the Philippines and Malaysia, declared a holy war that was blessed by extremist preachers and religious priests and openly preached a harsh hand against anyone who would stand in the way of Jihad. The brutal result was killing without compromise, massacres regardless of age or sex of the victim. Anyone suspected of opposing Noor's front risked death. Hundreds of officials and heads of local authorities were abducted from their homes and later their mutilated bodies were discovered, sometimes accompanied by notices written in red stating the "crime" of this or that slaughtered person, all accompanied by quotations from the Koran. Among the murdered were tourists, missionaries or foreign experts, especially Americans. At that time, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict made headlines and in the years when Marxist-Maoist terrorist organizations stood out in Europe, the United States and Japan, there was no central place left to describe the atrocities of Moro and Jolo district. The stories of the war in the Philippine archipelago were therefore reduced, if at all, to concise headlines that were relegated to the inside pages of most newspapers. The fact that communist undergrounds also operate in the Philippines, which carry out attacks in urban centers, has contributed quite a bit to "obscuring accurate reporting" of what is happening in the field of internal security.
Before Shinor made headlines as a talented and brutal guerrilla leader, he stood out as a student activist, all this while in the sixties he studied political science, had a brief flirtation with liberal circles and was one of the leaders of a student organization that supported Malaysian rebels, some of them communists, who were in the Philippines as exiles and refugees. Nur helped, for example, organize them to hunt them down and flee to Malaysia with the goal of taking control in a popular rebellion over the province of the state of Sabah, part of the Malaysian archipelago, and from there continue until the occupation of Kuala Lumpur. At the same time, the security services of the Philippines and other countries, including the United States, began to "keep an eye" on Noor and the mythology associated with the man, which is perpetuated by his loyalists, claims that Noor "saved a miracle" by slaughtering dozens of young volunteers who were about to leave by sea for Malaysia. The traumatic event was the one that brought the student of political science, a lover of history and beautiful literature, to embark on a path of terrorism and by the way to get closer to the religion of Islam and the ideas of jihad and the caliphate.
From time to time news leaked from the Philippines about "friendship and working relationships" between Noor and the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and later, in interviews and speeches, Noor did not hide his admiration for the Libyan leader and even adopted from his ideas the "Islamic-Socialists" as they came to be expressed in the "Green Book". Terrorist financing, as a Libyan contribution, therefore came generously. In an area where smuggling is a "mass occupation" and the level of public corruption is high - Noor had no difficulty in recruiting supporters and fighters and equipping them with weapons and explosives. Additional military equipment was looted from army convoys ambushed by the rebels, collected in raids on camps and police stations and also received from defectors, usually soldiers of Muslim origin, who decided to join the jihad of the south.
In 1972, in the midst of a period of military rule imposed in the south as emergency regulations, led at the time by the tyrant Ferdinand Marcos, Noor disappeared in the Forest of Witness and from there, he expanded the circle of fighters he heard and announced that the MNLF organization was striving for independence for the entire Mindanao region. The war intensified and between 1974/5 the Filipino army, with mainly logistical "quiet" assistance from the US, Australia and New Zealand, set up a special command for underground warfare. The force sent to the south included 36 infantry and marine battalions, dozens of vessels including river ships and frigates, dozens of attack aircraft and a large number of helicopters. The persistent war waged by the army brought the rebels to a severe crisis that culminated at the end of 1975, the year in which President Fidel Ramos worked to negotiate with the rebels. The state of the rebellion was very bad. The army systematically destroyed, including indiscriminate bombing, dozens of camps and equipment warehouses, training and communication centers, as well as rebel vessels, which were used for smuggling equipment or piracy. Above all, the army inflicted heavy losses on the rebels, in addition to crushing operations, sometimes deliberately indiscriminate - thousands of civilians were also killed
The peace talks, which among other things were conducted in Libya, led Nour to agree to a ceasefire which he signed as an exile from his country. The charismatic leader, who with the decline of the rebellion went to Pakistan and Afghanistan and finally found a comfortable refuge in Saudi Arabia, where he got closer to the ideas of the Wahhabi movement. He came to the round of peace talks, crowned with clear Islamic degrees, which testified to his piety. These include an "Ayatollah, or a Hajj and a Sheikh" In the peace talks, Nur pledged to stop not only the rebellion of his people but also sudden flare-ups, mainly from extremists who refused to "kill" the original rebellion and instead of the MNLF they formed breakaway organizations, for example the "Islamic Liberation Front of Moro ” MILF and murderous fringe movements, such as the Abu Sayyaf group which relies on the veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
The peak of Noor's success came when the Philippine government accepted the principle of establishing a Muslim autonomous region to be based in Moro province and appointed the rebel Noor as... governor. The entry of the guerrilla and terrorist leader into the provincial governor's office, as the representative of the central government in Manila, was accompanied by intense protest from Christians and moderate Muslims alike, who refused to accept an official assessment "Snor Missourii has moderated" while others are angry "that the cat was sent to guard the cream" All of these quickly led to renewed manifestations of violence, including Harassments against Noor and his men by the organizations of the deserters and in particular the Abu-Saif ASG group.
Muslims who support Noor, claim today "that the central government has not fulfilled its commitments in the field of economic development, education and infrastructure and the area remains poor and undeveloped as it was" factors that have led to growing criticism against the governor who found himself in a trap. In the nineties, the wave of the global Mujahideen rose and Noor found himself in a difficult situation, when the veterans of his organization demanded that he return to violence and holy war. Incidents between the army and civilians or rebels increased and at a certain point, which Nur defined in the ears of journalists as "an existential danger to the achievements of Islam" when he was again "marked" by the security forces, he chose to return to the jungle and began to reorganize his men. However, after years of inactivity and increased intelligence surveillance of the organization's members and Muslim extremists in general, Noor was unable to bring about a widespread rebellion. The leader who was a governor became a persecuted person who, according to his loyalists, "didn't sleep more than once in the same shelter" In the end, Nur was forced to flee to neighboring Malaysia.
The news that Noor was holed up in Malaysia led to Arab diplomatic activity on the Manila-Kuala Lumpur route and in the end Noor was captured by the Malaysian security forces and despite opposition from Malaysian extremists and Jihad preachers, he was handed over to the Philippines. These days, a military trial is about to begin in Manila, in which Nur will be accused of treason. The rebel faces the death penalty, or "at least" life imprisonment. The fact that the charismatic leader is incarcerated led to attempts by Muslim elements from the south to talk to President Gloria Macfagal Arroyo, to request the release of the leader, who promises to "behave well", but even if Arroyo was willing to consider releasing Nur and returning him to the south, she encountered strong opposition from the state of the army and mainly from the intelligence. The United States, the loudest leader in the "international war on terror" has also exerted pressure against the release of the rebel who, in her eyes, is connected to the principles of Jemaa-e-Islamia and al-Qaeda.
About two weeks ago, as the trial date approached, at least six hundred Nur loyalists organized in the Jolo area in the south, who began attacking infrastructure targets and soon moved to attacks on police stations and military bases. In several cases, it was reported that hundreds of armed men, shouting "Allahu wa Akbar" and wailing battle cries, stormed remote police stations, or raided the houses of their opponents and Christian settlements. The General Staff sent a number of special anti-terrorist units, infantry battalions, paratroopers and marines to the area and in the last two weeks, since the outbreak of the new rebellion, the army managed to kill about a hundred rebels, all this at the cost of the lives of 25 soldiers and dozens of civilians who fell into fire-ridden areas, or those who were injured in the number Infernal attacks. The people of Noor, who are demanding the release of their leader from prison, have meanwhile allied themselves with the extremists who have never laid down their arms and with the Abu Sayyaf people, who are considered "ultra-extremist" according to the definition of the Philippine Chief of Staff, and according to recent reports from the south, a dangerous situation bordering on anarchy once again prevails in Moro, Jolo and Mindanao When the army commanders loudly announce in the media about "a firm decision to destroy Noor, its people and the other organizations". A task that is easy to express verbally, but at the moment difficult to carry out...
* The article is published at the same time on the Kolmosnet website
A compilation of Yoram Mizrahi's articles on the Hidan website
Following 11/XNUMX
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