An Invasion of Paradise

Easter Sunday was just another day in paradise for James and Mary Murphy of Rochester, N.Y. They had come to the $250-a-night resort of Sipadan Island, off the east coast of Malaysia, to swim among the coral, turtles and parrot fish. But that evening, as they dined with the other tourists, six armed assailants turned up. Shouting "Move it, goddam, move it!" the intruders ordered everyone to swim to boats waiting offshore.

The Murphys were lucky. James Murphy noted that the men did not seem to behave like the pirates who roamed the South China Sea; they showed little interest in the tourists' valuables as they cut the phone lines. Thinking quickly, he told them his wife could not swim and was unable to make it to the boats. Nonplussed, the invaders turned away long enough for the Murphys to hide in the undergrowth. Last week, at a hotel in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, James said, "If they would have taken us, we'd have been the only American hostages." That would have been truly unlucky, because the abductors were not only marauders but also distinctly anti-American.

The other tourists were not so lucky. Three Germans, two French, two South Africans, two Finns and a Lebanese were herded onto the boats with nine Malaysian and two Filipino resort workers. Under cover of darkness they were taken to Jolo island, in the southern Philippines, about an hour away. For days the captors' identity was a mystery, with speculation running from plain pirates to Abu Sayyaf, the most feared Muslim rebel group in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. At midweek the Philippine Defense Secretary confirmed that the hostages were being held by Galib Andang, a.k.a. "Commander Robot," the Abu Sayyaf leader on Jolo and perpetrator of other kidnappings. He wanted a multimillion-dollar ransom. Late in the week Abu Sayyaf allowed a free-lance journalist a glimpse at what the Murphys had avoided: almost all the hostages were ill, hungry and dehydrated. And the captors insisted on new political and economic demands.

The tourists were now linked to a crisis in the southern Philippines. A month earlier, Abu Sayyaf fighters had kidnapped 53 people, including 22 children, from schools on Basilan Island, 50 miles northeast of Jolo. They demanded that the Philippine government persuade U.S. President Bill Clinton to release Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, who is serving a life-plus-240-year sentence in Colorado. When Philippine President Joseph Estrada rejected the demand, the rebels announced that they had beheaded two hostages. Estrada ordered his military to launch an assault on the Abu Sayyaf camp, and one day later, the hostages were taken in Sipadan.

Abu Sayyaf, meaning "Bearer of the Sword," was set up in 1991 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, a veteran of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. With some 600 fighters, Abu Sayyaf says, it is struggling for an independent Muslim state, but its actions have been little more than localized terror and kidnapping. It is known to receive support from the Middle East, though claims that Osama bin Laden visited its operations have never been proved. In 1993 Abu Sayyaf rolled grenades down the aisle of a Catholic cathedral and killed seven worshippers. In 1995 its fighters invaded a Christian village and killed 53 people.

"We may be small in number, but we have plenty fighting with us--the angels and the hand of Allah," Abu Sayyaf's current leader, Khadaffy Janjalani, told TIME on two-way radio. Khadaffy, who took over after government forces killed his brother in 1998, spoke as his camp was being attacked by the Philippine military. "We dream of an entire Islamic world, and we will achieve it. Allah is with us. Just now three bombs turned out to be duds--they did not explode."

Abu Sayyaf's objectives may sound unreal--600 rebels are not going to overturn a country of 79 million people anytime soon, let alone convert the world. But last week the Philippine military was bogged down as troops faced an enemy at home among jungle and land mines. Zealotry only makes dealing with the guerrillas more hazardous. "How do you negotiate with guys like that?" asked an Estrada aide last week. "They're crazy."