Rebels of Mindanao

by Tom Anthony

  Of course, the new democracy would not have a European or American model. Sheik Kemal wanted to be certain that the new Saudi Arabia would take a shape similar to those limited, benevolent democracies in the neighboring emirate states, or perhaps Turkey, the homeland of the young man seated in front of him. Change was inevitable; the king would eventually die and there would be a new ruler. Sheik Kemal’s purpose in life was to make certain there would not be another king, but a great emir, perhaps himself or another of his kind, a follower of the true prophet, not an admirer of the decadent West of Jews and Christians. The new emir would not be like the present officials, who drank alcohol and went with prostitutes as soon as they left the kingdom on a business or government trip.

  He turned again to the young man from Turkey. “I know of your work in your homeland. It will be more difficult in foreign lands.”

  “Yes, I accept that fact. I understand that the cell chief wherever I am sent will be my leader. I willingly accept my role.” Mahir admired Kemal’s goals and vision and was comfortable in making this war his war; he would be on jihad. But also, he wanted the personal reward he would receive, or that his wife and son would receive if he were killed while engaged in the holy war. He accepted by telling the great leader sitting in front of him, “I have seen what you have achieved in your country, huge laser-guided machines grading the desert and constructing irrigation systems to leach the salt of centuries from the land, making it arable again, and systems to take salt out of seawater. I see what a strong leader can do. I see your vision, and I want to go on this mission for Allah.”

  “Hakki, for a thousand years people like you have gone on their missions to protect Muslim lands. Now we are in danger of losing the war won by Saladin on the plains of Syria in 1187. Those who refused to listen to the prophets, the Jews who sit on Arab land, Americans who have invaded our heartland, and the monarchs who rule the countries where the holiest places are located, must be thrown out. Your mission is very important in the new war.” The sheik was effective in motivating Mahir by mixing personal stories with political facts as he saw them. “We need men like you.”

  Mahir was ready. He looked Kemal directly in the eyes and said, “I will go. When do I get the details?”

  Sheik Kemal’s contacts in Istanbul had cleared Mahir; and he had a good feeling about the young man sitting in front of him. He told Mahir, “Your mission is to deliver the resources to wage war in one of the places where the Jews and their American lackeys are most vulnerable now. Other teams like the one you will join in Mindanao will also be striking on the same day in other lands. We will make the world a field of blazing grass with too many hot spots for the enemies to put out. And for once and for all, Enshallah, we will also rid my nation of kings and return to the law of the Koran.”

  Mahir continued to look for clarification of exactly what he would have to do. What were the “resources”? Would he need to smuggle a nuclear device, or carry biological weapons on his body? “What is my part?” he asked.

  “You are not a Saudi national, but you are a Muslim.” Kemal was still not being specific as he tested the Turk. “You are about to commit to a great cause, and you will obtain riches for your family. Your part is to carry the fuel to those who will light the fuse.” Sheik Kemal and his cohorts knew what they wanted to achieve, and Mahir seemed to be the perfect instrument for them. They did not want to use a Saudi national or to be personally connected. The sheik continued, “The time is right to make the island of Mindanao, in the Republic of the Philippine Islands, a separate and independent Islamic state, separate from their oppressors, the government in Manila and their American allies. With that success achieved, Indonesia and Thailand will follow quickly. The fires burning there will be our signal to rise next against the royal family here in Saudi Arabia. Americans will lose their will; they will be overextended and demoralized. Even the overseas Jews will not want to spend their hoarded money and will go back to praying and counting their shekels.”

  “I know what you say is true. I have seen the effects of imperialism and capitalism in my own land.” Mahir continued to say the things Kemal wanted to hear. “The Americans have become weary of sacrificing their futures, their precious retirement funds, to gain only what they call the ‘hearts and minds’ of foreigners in countries that have no relevance to them. I have studied about this during my training.”

  “Yes. They pretend to build roads and bridges to help the native peoples, but it is just so they can move their Hummers around. Al Qaeda and our strike force in Mindanao, the Abu Sayaf, stay one step ahead of them. The infidels build it; we blow it up. But now they have killed a loyal leader in that place, a true martyr whom we have been supporting, the great Abu Sabaya, shot with four of his warriors. We will avenge their deaths and call the people to fight with us against global Zionism.” He continued to sketch out his vision for Mahir, without exaggeration. “The Americans will relive their lost war in Vietnam, an experience they so fear that it divides them even now. They could not hold their will together sufficiently to defeat a few rice farmers in one little country, they have lost their war in Iraq, they are confused now in Persia, and they will have no stomach and no capability to make a difference in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Thailand, in the world. Our time is now.”

  Sheik Kemal was emphatic with Mahir. “Our mission for you, our mission together, is to establish an Islamic government in Mindanao, independent of Manila. We will create a global caliphate as Mohammad envisioned; we will establish the Islamic Republic of Mindanao. With our victory, we will embarrass the Philippine government and the president personally. Politically, they will have to withdraw from the Philippine Security Initiative or lose Mindanao, or if they do not negotiate, we will simply take over Mindanao by force. Either way, same outcome, we win, they lose.”

  Mahir confirmed that he knew what was going on in Southeast Asia. He said, “I comprehend; I read the newspapers and watch the television news.”

  Sheik Kemal nodded. “Good. We will spread discontent; then we will win revolutions everywhere. You will carry five million American dollars in cash to our attack team.”

  It was obvious to Mahir that there would be great risk attached to this assignment. His basic motivation was his duty; he could someday make the hajj knowing that he had performed a great deed for Allah. But the immediate job was just to haul money, and he did not understand why the sheik, with all his contacts and operational capabilities in other countries, needed him for what seemed to be such an easy task.

  “Why not just transfer it electronically to someone you trust?” he asked.

  Sheik Kemal was becoming more open with Mahir. “First, it is too much money to transfer at once; it could be traced by American electronic surveillance measures, and stopped. Yes, over time we could transfer it gradually in small amounts, but we do not have time, our operatives in the field need it all now. Also, I do not trust some of the people along the electronic path the funds would follow. Our armed men in the field must have it in cash; they need cash to put into hands, not electronic credits in a bank.”

  “If you do not trust others, why do you trust me?” Mahir asked.

  “I do not especially trust you without reservation, but I have checked on you; I know your friends and what you have already done. When a man kills once, it is easier the second time.” The sheik demonstrated that his intelligence was accurate.

  “And we know your family.” Sheik Kemal said it gently, but the message was clear.

  Mahir had another question. “If you do not trust all our brothers in that country, I also cannot trust them completely. What happens if I am the one who winds up the hostage? What is my fall-back position?”

  The sheik hesitated a bit; of course he had to track Mahir separately from whatever the simple field soldiers would report about him, as they might form their own conspiracy. Yet, if he had to get an independent message to Mahir directly, how would the Turk know it was genuine?

  Sheik Kema
l pointed to a large rock in the corner. “That stone is from the battlefield of the great victory of Saladin. I take it with me to remind me of my quest. Remember that stone. And yes,” he told Mahir, “yes, I have a fall-back position for our interests. If I choose to use it to help you, you will know whatever you are told is from me if you are presented with a green stone and a white flower.”

  Mahir did not like obfuscation, ‘Just tell me what it is in simple terms.” He was persistent with the sheik.

  “I did tell you in very simple terms. What could be more fundamental? With the complexities that may evolve, my simple answer will cover any instance. It is elemental—green stone and white flower. That is my signal, and you will know the message is from me. Leave it at that. It is easy to remember.” Sheik Kemal obviously did not want to elaborate, and it was time to stop talking. Mahir would have to accept and work with what he had. Kemal told him, “Probably you will die, but we’ll take care of your family. When you pick up two bags in Syria, I will transfer 250,000 dollars to your account that day.”

  “At the end of my mission? What if I live?”

  “Live or die, when Kumander Ali informs me that he has received the bags in Mindanao, I’ll wire another 250,000.”

  Mahir considered, looked the sheik in the eyes and said, “I will do it.”

  The next day, Mahir left Lefkosia and crossed the green line into the Greek part of the Nicosia. As he used his Turkish passport, he was not looked upon suspiciously; many transient workers made this crossing daily. Later the same day he was on a Middle East Airlines flight to Damascus. The Syrian contact who met him at the airport gave him a new passport, identifying him as an Indonesian citizen. Mahir appeared passably like the Indonesian shown in his passport identity. From here on he would travel on a round-trip ticket out of Damascus; one-way tickets always looked suspicious to airport officials. The next two days he spent at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Damascus, paid for in advance by someone he never met, where two duffel bags were delivered to his room. The second day he received confirmation that 250,000 American dollars, half of his earthly reward for the mission, had been paid in advance and received in London into the old account set up by his father many years ago at Barclay’s Bank, Ealing Branch. When he left Syria he had a new name on a new passport and five million U.S. dollars in hundred dollar bills packed neatly inside the two bags that he checked to be transported in the baggage compartment of the aircraft as ordinary luggage. Several porters and customs inspectors in airports along his travel route would receive good tips to let the bags pass through untouched. After connections through Bangkok and Jakarta, where he was met by a nameless person who passed him on to the next nameless person, his final contact put him on a fishing boat that was headed out to the Celebes Sea for a week. He was lodged in the crew’s quarters, where he always had a bed to sleep in because one or another of the crew would be on duty. He had no work to do on board, and after three days of playing solitaire he became bored. The fourth day out they were met at sea by a smaller diesel-powered boat that looked as though it could move fast. He went the rest of the way in this banka, another twenty-four hours, with fewer comforts than before.

  The last day passed slowly. After midnight, when the sea was calm and the moon was still buried below the horizon, the crew assisted him out of the banka and into a one-man rubber raft. He took with him only the waterproof duffle bags with the money and the small bag that he had hand-carried on his flights, and paddled the last hundred yards to shore. Feeling calm and committed to his mission, Mahir walked awkwardly over sharp irregular coral formations the last few feet to the beach, pulling his floating kit behind him in the first low light of the rising moon.

  Zamboanga, in southwest Mindanao, is one of those South Pacific visions of a volcanic island, where mangrove roots protect the white sand beaches from a possible tourist onslaught. After the coral and the mangrove, thick undergrowth, chest high, impedes progress. Then the rain forest begins.

  If all these obstacles did not keep the tourist industry from setting up sex clubs and four-star restaurants on the pristine sands, the threat of kidnapping for profit by the Abu Sayaf does, and precludes property investment in any business undertaking. The shore was empty.

  Mahir pulled his gear behind him and quickly waded up a waist-deep stream, whose bed allowed him to avoid the mangrove spikes at the shoreline and to escape the possibility of being seen on the open beach. Silence prevailed at first while he waded forward, but when he stopped to adjust his equipment, the sounds came, birds of many voices, the rustling sound of something heavy moving unseen from lower to higher ground in the underbrush, high breezes stirring leaves above, and breaths of air moving strands of barbed vines to grab at his clothing. Hungry insects similar to mosquitoes and creatures like mantises he had seen before, only healthier and better fed, permeated the brush around him. Smaller species of flies and mosquitoes that seemed to have evolved precisely to enter through the tiniest cracks in his insect nettings buzzed continuously around him. They seemed to savor the insect repellent they sucked off his skin whenever exposed, drawn to the poison like an illegal recreational drug.

  Who was watching him? The intelligence from Al Qaeda cells in Indonesia, passed halfway around the world to Damascus and back to him by radio while he was on the boat, would soon be outdated. Perhaps he would get new information from the mysterious contact Sheik Kemal had hinted about. Mahir had been told that small tactical units of U.S. Green Berets were located with Rangers of the Philippine Army somewhere inland from his present position, and would be delighted to catch him with cash in his possession. Mahir ducked under the canvas tarp he carried with him and turned on his mini-flashlight to check his map against his GPS readout. He determined his position and identified the particular river, nameless on the map, which moved past him as the tide began to move out and its drop to the sea became more pronounced.

  He walked up the stream, his feet sucked down on each step forward by the decomposing vegetable mush on the bottom. He felt leeches sniffing for his blood. A short distance from the shore, where the coastal road crossed the river, he reached a concrete bridge and passed under an overhanging branch. He punctured the rubber raft, weighted it down with stones and pushed it under a waterlogged block of wood. Then he stashed the two big bags under the bridge and waited to meet up with his next contact.

  There was little traffic crossing the bridge over his head, and no pedestrians were likely to enter the water here, certainly not at this hour. Just before daylight, he heard brush moving and a human presence descending the bank at the northwest corner of the bridge, part of the agreed-upon recognition signal. He observed from his hidden position, and then approached the stout soldier who would be his guide. Mahir Hakki was about to join the Abu Sayaf in their revolution.

  6

  The Embassy

  Fort Bonifacio is the final resting place for 17,206 American soldiers, with neat rows of crosses and Stars of David extending in sweeping, circular rows around the central monument. Thornton did not want the number of dead buried in the American cemetery to increase, not even by one. And Philippine Army Colonel Reginald O. Liu did not want to add any names, especially his own, onto the crosses reserved for Filipino soldiers resting forever in the adjacent cemetery. But there was a good chance that because of what they were about to do their names could be engraved on stone here sooner than either preferred.

  Liu and his driver, Staff Sergeant Willie Rivera, met Thornton’s flight from Davao City, and the Filipino officer and the American civilian saluted each other with big smiles. Since he had arrived in the Philippines, Thornton had been in regular touch with Liu, mostly by e-mail. He regarded Liu as a near genius, whose wit and humor inspired all who knew him, his friends, superiors in rank, and especially the men he commanded. On the few occasions over the years when Thornton had flown in to Manila to visit, he usually stayed with Liu, at least when he was traveling alone.

  From his teaching days at West Point,
Thornton remembered Liu as the sharp, young foreign cadet who had an intense desire to learn and excelled in the study of what for him was his third language, German. That was a long time ago. In recent years, they had become comrades. When Liu presented Thornton to one of his cliques of military buddies or political alliances, he introduced him as “My professor, he taught me everything he knew.” And Thornton would respond, “Yes, see how far it got him.” It was a trite, self-deprecating act, but it drew smiles and opened avenues for more serious conversations among the close-knit hierarchy of Filipino military officers and businessmen.

  “Willkommen in Manila,” Liu greeted his former teacher.

  “Hey, Reggie, thanks for being here. What’s up?” Thornton was not sure if he would be met by anyone at the airport, let alone the colonel.

  “What’s up is dinner and the game on a big screen TV at your embassy. Hargens clued me in on your plans.”

  Thornton threw his overnight bag into the back seat of Liu’s government black SUV and himself with it. Thornton was staying at the old Paco Park Hotel downtown and Rivera drove him there after dropping Liu off at Philippine Army headquarters on the way. The insurrection in Mindanao was heating up, and Liu was heavily involved in contingency planning for possible military operations.

  Later in the afternoon Rivera returned to the hotel, with Colonel Liu riding in the front seat and obviously on a mission. Liu was in action mode, wearing combat fatigues and a web belt with a .44 Magnum holstered and obvious, not his usual uniform for riding around town. Thornton jumped into the back seat and asked Liu, “Off to war, are we?”