MANILA, Philippines—Not long ago, Abu Sayyaf bandits were dismissed as all but dead—thanks to a much-heralded joint effort against terrorism by the US and the Philippine military.

Now, there is fear that the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf is making a comeback.

The Moro extremist group has been blamed for a spate of kidnappings in recent months. The latest victim is a Sri Lankan peace worker who was seized on Basilan Island earlier this month.

The Abu Sayyaf raised more than P70 million ($1.5 million) last year through ransoms, and its ranks rose to 400 members last year from 383 in 2007, a confidential government report noted.

Also, new leaders are rising to take the place of those captured by US-backed troops.

The rebirth of the Abu Sayyaf has raised renewed fears of terrorism.

So far, the Abu Sayyaf has focused on raising money through kidnappings, but the group is likely to pursue high-profile assaults to reassert its stature as a terror group, the report noted.

The Abu Sayyaf has also allowed foreign militants, mostly members of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, to operate in Mindanao.

‘They’re a threat’

“As long as they are there, they can provide safe haven for Jemaah Islamiyah where they can train the next generation of bombers and terrorists. That’s why they’re a threat,” said Col. William Coultrup, who heads the US counterterrorism forces in Mindanao.

The Abu Sayyaf, which means “Father of the Swordsman” in Arabic, was founded in 1991 on the island-province of Basilan.

Supported by Asian and Middle Eastern radical groups, the Abu Sayyaf came to the attention of the US government in 2001 when the group kidnapped three Americans among 20 people taken from the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan.

The Abu Sayyaf is believed to be sheltering Indonesian members of Jemaah Islamiyah, including Umar Patek and Dulmatin.

Suspected of masterminding the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people in 2002, the two terrorists fled to Abu Sayyaf strongholds in Mindanao to evade a crackdown in Indonesia.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines did not have the funds for a full-out assault against the Abu Sayyaf, so American troops came in with weapons, combat training and surveillance.

American help

US soldiers helped rein in a brief but brutal era of mass kidnappings, bombings and beheadings by the militants. Washington has poured millions of dollars into the Philippines in military assistance and civic projects.

Amid its problems in Iraq, Washington hailed the success of the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf as life and commerce bounced back in Basilan.

In 2004, however, Abu Sayyaf and Indonesian militants were blamed for a bombing that ignited an inferno on a ferry near Manila Bay, killing 116 people.

The Abu Sayyaf has also espoused a more violent “jihad,” or holy war, in Mindanao, where more than 120,000 people have died in a Moro separatist rebellion for decades.

Spate of kidnappings

Last year, the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped at least 12 people in Jolo, Basilan and three other southern provinces, including a TV news team, according to the government report.

Several captives have been ransomed since, but 10 hostages, including three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) taken on Jan. 15, remain in Abu Sayyaf’s hands.

Snatched from a car at gunpoint on Sulu province’s Jolo Island after inspecting a jail water project, the missing ICRC workers—two Europeans and a Filipino—are being held in the lush jungle.

On Feb. 13, Sri Lankan peace activist Umar Jaleel was seized at his Basilan residence.

New generation

The Abu Sayyaf’s comeback is led by a new generation of leaders, according to Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban, who heads a Jolo-based antiterrorism task force.

“All the Abu Sayyaf’s ideologues are dead, the ones left behind are bandits,” Sabban said.

“The support they’re counting on from other countries has vanished. Now, everybody’s on his own, trying to raise money through kidnappings. They say they’re fighting for a cause? No way.”

Out of the 24 original leaders and militants whose faces were on a wanted poster widely distributed across the sprawling archipelago, only nine remain at large. The rest are dead or in jail, their faces marked off one by one.

The Abu Sayyaf’s oldest, ailing commander—one-armed Radulan Sahiron—is missing. He vanished after a Dec. 7, 2008, clash that left his cherished white horse dead, according to Sabban.

Albader Parad

Among the new leaders is the colorful Albader Parad, who was just a scrawny foot soldier with an M203 grenade launcher dangling from his small frame nine years ago.

Parad was involved in a 2000 mass kidnapping from the Sipadan resort in nearby Malaysia that netted 10 Europeans and 11 other people. When the kidnappers allowed a group of journalists to visit the hostages, Parad swiped the watch of an Associated Press reporter.

A military dossier described Parad as coming from a poor family, most of whose members belonged to the Abu Sayyaf or had links to it.

Parad has amassed P20 million from a string of early 2000 kidnappings. A substantial part of the ransom payments has been invested by relatives in passenger transport and coconut farmlands, according to the military dossier.

“We want the military to pull out. If not, we won’t talk to anyone,” Parad said in a video aired in early February by the ABS-CBN news network, boldly showing his face to the camera while a bunch of masked gunmen stood behind him in the woods near Jolo’s Indanan township.

Behind the scenes, there are widespread reports that Parad is privately seeking money to free the hostages.

Parad is just one of the new Abu Sayyaf commanders, but he has plenty of violent company at the top. He has been joined by at least three others, according to the government security threats report.

3 commanders

The report said two new Abu Sayyaf commanders now lead their own factions—Nurhassan Jamiri from Basilan and Sulaiman Pattah from Jolo, both predominantly Muslim provinces in the country’s most destitute region.

Jamiri, who is in his 20s, has been linked to kidnappings and the beheading of 10 Marines during a 2007 clash.

Pattah, a one-armed militant, gained notoriety for allegedly helping lead last year’s kidnapping of ABS-CBN news anchor Ces Drilon and her two TV crewmen in Jolo.

Another new commander is Furuji Indama, according to Marine Lt. Col. Leonard Vincent Teodoro.

Indama helps lead the same faction as Jamiri and has been blamed for kidnappings and other terrorist attacks in Basilan, said Teodoro, who has overseen assaults against the two bandits.

Even the government concedes that the battle against one of Southeast Asia’s most violent groups is far from over.

“I think they’ve morphed into something else, just like … criminal gangs,” Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.