Designating the Abu Sayyaf: A Case Study in a Broken Inter-Agency Process

By Zachary Abuza

The US Government�s effort to block of terrorist assets is �broken� according to the forthcoming GAO report, leaked to the New York Times. The turf wars between the relevant agencies, Treasury, State, the FBI, the Intel Community, military commands, and the NSC are legion. Each has their own bureaucratic interest in the issue and their missions tend to be at odds with one another especially when it comes to terrorist financing. The State Department�s official response, as quoted in the November 29, 2005, New York Times, denied the lack of inter-agency coordination: "No interagency process is without flaws," but continued: �there is much evidence� that the inter-agency working group on terrorist financing �is one of the most successful examples of interagency cooperation.�

The State Department�s position is laughable. One only has to look to today�s announcement by the Department of the Treasury that three of the top Abu Sayyaf group (ASG) leaders, Jainal Antel Sali, Jr., Radulan Sahiron, and Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, were �designated pursuant to Executive Order 13224,� to understand the inter-agency gridlock that �creates obstacles rather than coordinates efforts.�

Why has it taken all these years to get these three men designated? This case is appalling because unlike other, more politically and diplomatically sensitive cases, it is so uncontroversial. The ASG has been on the US Government�s FTO list for years. Since early-2002, US military personnel have been sporadically based in the southern Philippines to train their Philippine counterparts. The ASG featured prominently in the White House�s 2003 National Strategy to Counter Terrorism. The ASG has no state sponsors, or even defenders in Riyadh. Other ASG members have been successfully designated before. Several ASG leaders have been indicted in US courts, and the US government has issued rewards for their capture in their Rewards for Justice Program. Moreover, the Philippine government is fully on board the War on Terror. While they resist pressure for the US Government to act on the MILF, Manila is more than happy to see us move on the ASG or JI.

And yet, these three designations took well over half a year to go through. These designations were as cut and dry, politically and diplomatically indifferent, as can be. One understands the political realities when dealing with very sensitive cases � such as politically protected Islamic charities in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world and the victim of 4 major terrorist attacks since October 2002. But none of those sensitivities was present in this case, and none of those vested bureaucratic interests should have been either. The wheels of the government turn slowly, but this slowly on a downhill slope?

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