Abu Sayyaf

Abu Sayyaf (ⁱ/ˌɑːbuː/ /sɑːˌjɔːf/; Arabic: جماعة أبو سياف‎; Jamāʿah Abū Sayyāf, ASG, Filipino: Grupong Abu Sayyaf) is a militant Islamist group based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than four decades, Moro groups have been engaged in an insurgency for an independent province in the country. The group is considered very violent, and was responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of Superferry 14 in 2004, which killed 116 people. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic ابو, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("swordsmith"). As of 2012, the group was estimated to have between 200 and 400 members, down from 1250 in 2000. They use mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars, and automatic rifles.

Since its inception in 1991, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, and extortion in what they describe as their fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines. They have also been involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping, rape, child sexual assault, drive-by shootings, extortion, and drug trafficking, and the goals of the group "appear to have alternated over time between criminal objectives and a more ideological intent".

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf

Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf ( pronunciation  AHB-DOOL rah-SOOL sah-YAHF Pashto: عبدالرب رسول سياف‎, born 1946, Paghman Valley, Afghanistan) is an Afghan politician. He took part in the war against the PDPA government in the 1980s, leading the Mujahedin faction Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan.

During the war, he received patronage from Arab sources and mobilized Arab volunteers for the Mujahedin forces. Sayyaf is said to have been the one who first invited Osama bin Laden to take refuge in Afghanistan (Jalalabad), after bin Laden's 1996 expulsion from Sudan by the otherwise sympathetic Sudanese régime under Saudi, Egyptian, and American pressure.

In 2005, Sayyaf's Ittehad-al-Islami (or Islamic Union) was converted into the political party, the Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan. He has been considered a member of the Northern Alliance, despite his close relationship with militant groups such as Al-Qaeda that opposed it. He has also been accused of having knowingly assisted the two assassins that killed Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in a suicide bomb blast two days before 11 September 2001.