Abu Sayyaf: An Update

Jesse Walker | April 1, 2004

Terror in the Philippines:

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said earlier this week her security forces had uncovered an Abu Sayyaf cell in Manila, arresting six men and seizing nearly 40 kg (80 lb) of explosives intended to be used in "Madrid-level" attacks. Relatives of two of the six said on Thursday they had been framed by police.

"Even we were surprised at how many want to be martyrs, the queue is long, we will not run out of bombers," Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani was quoted as saying in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's largest newspaper.

Comments

|4.1.04 @ 1:12AM|#

I apologize to Hitler for attacking him when the real fight was with Japan.

|4.1.04 @ 2:07AM|#

Hitler stupidly declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Not that we wouldn't have gotten there sooner or later anyway.

|4.1.04 @ 4:01AM|#

Jeff Clothier,

Kin selection would defeat any presumed improvement to the gene pool made when suicide bombers kill themselves. Becoming a martyr raises the social status and financial prospects of the bombers blood relations which in turn raises their reproductive success. The genes a suicide bomber carries will pass onto subsequent generations via those relatives who share copies of his genes. If their martyrdom benefits their relatives enough the bomber might be more reproductively successful than had they merely had their own children.

Given that most suicide bombers are low status and poor, blowing themselves up might be a good evolutionary strategy.

Jeff Clothier|4.1.04 @ 10:52AM|#

I'm still talking about genetics on another thread. I wonder how suicide bombing will affect the gene pool of the populations from which they come? Are they slowly breeding a more docile strain of terrorists by killing off their most ferocious, or breeding a smarter one by killing off those stupid and gullible enough to volunteer?

|4.1.04 @ 12:26PM|#

Gotta start killing the leaders who send out others to die--they apparently value their lives quite highly.

|4.1.04 @ 12:53PM|#

The Philippines should invade Burma or Paraguay or some other country that had nothing to do with the attempted bombing.

|4.2.04 @ 12:49PM|#

"Gotta start killing the leaders who send out others to die--they apparently value their lives quite highly."

What, are you trying to ruin my day?

Patriotic Humor|4.12.04 @ 10:47AM|#

Kill them all, let HRW sort them out.