Bangsamoro News Agency
Mindanao, South Philippines
PRESS RELEASE
==============================================================

  MNLF CHAIRMAN NUR MISUARI STRONGLY DENIES MERGING WITH ABU SAYYAF

THE Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under the Chairmanship of Prof. Nur Misuari has strongly denied military report published in several national newspapers that it has merged forces with the dreaded Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu and Basilan.

MNLF Vice Chairman Jimmy Labawan said the military report is but a part of the overall government grand design to discredit and destroy the name of the MNLF which is fighting for a just and legitimate cause--the liberation and decolonization of the Bangsamoro people.

Labawan, who is now taking charge of the MNLF affairs while the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo illegally detains Chairman Misuari in Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, said the government couldn’t succeed in destroying the name of the MNLF “because it has been known to the whole world that the MNLF is not a terrorist organization but a legitimate liberation movement of the Bangsamoro people.

MNLF secretary-general Ustadz Murshi Ibrahim, who is now acting as over-all commander of the MNLF forces in Sulu, said in a message relayed to the Bangsamoro News Agency that such an allegation of the military is part of their desperate move to destroy the MNLF following their successive heavy loses in all their encounters in Sulu.

Reliable sources told the agency that in the few days’ armed encounter, hundreds of army and marine soldiers were killed while the MNLF suffered only few casualties

Ibrahim, an Islamic theologian who graduated from a well-known Islamic university in Saudi Arabia, said the MNLF and the Abu Sayyaf could never join together because they have different ideologies and objectives, although he admitted that they are fighting the same enemy—the Philippine military.

In his previous speeches, Chairman Misuari had repeatedly condemned the Abu Sayyaf because of its illegal activities. He even asked (fatwa) opinion from a top Muslim Imam in Madina, Saudi Arabia about the kidnapping activity of the Abu Sayyaf, who told him that it is not permitted in Islam.

During his illegal detention in Malaysia in December last year, Misuari and the MNLF were also cleared by the Malaysian government from any participation in the Sipadan kidnapping perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf.

Labawan said the government is only making an excuse and justification to allow their masters, American forces to launch attacks against the MNLF in Sulu and other parts of Mindanao.

However, Ibrahim said if the government will continue its anti-Muslim and anti-Moro policy in Mindanao, the MNLF will fight it out all the way until there will be no more oppression and until the whole Mindanao will be liberated. # # #