abu sayaff

01

MV SuperFerry 14

A single bomb hidden in a SuperFerry's cargo hold on August 2, 2004 killed 116 people in Manila Bay — the deadliest peacetime maritime attack in recorded history. Abu Sayyaf planted it for $400.

02

Abu Sayyaf beheading incidents

Between 2000 and 2017, Abu Sayyaf publicly beheaded at least seven foreign nationals — Canadians, Germans, a Malaysian — filming several executions as negotiating instruments. Ransom, not ideology, drove most of them.

03

Warren Anderson (hostage)

Warren Anderson, a Canadian, was beheaded by Abu Sayyaf in April 2016 after ransom talks collapsed. He had been held captive in Sulu for months. Canada's no-ransom policy made his death a policy consequence.

04

Robert Hall (Canadian businessman)

Robert Hall, a Canadian resort manager, was beheaded in Sulu in June 2016 — the third hostage killed within months as Abu Sayyaf worked through a group taken from Samal Island in September 2015.

05

Siege of Marawi

In 2017, Hapilon's ISIS-aligned Abu Sayyaf faction and the Maute group held Marawi — a Philippine city of 200,000 — for 154 days. The military retook it building by building; most of the city was leveled in the process.

06

Dos Palmas kidnappings

Gracia Burnham was held by Abu Sayyaf for 376 days in Philippine jungle. The rescue firefight on June 7, 2002 killed her husband Martin — shot by Philippine soldiers — and left her with a bullet wound in the leg.

07

Tuyan massacre

On March 4, 2000, Abu Sayyaf ambushed and killed 44 Philippine Marines on Basilan island — the Armed Forces of the Philippines' worst single-engagement loss that year. The Marines were pursuing hostages taken from a school.

08

Siege of Lamitan

In 2000, Abu Sayyaf barricaded hostages inside Lamitan's Our Lady of the Mount Hospital, Basilan, using patients and captives as shields. Philippine soldiers held the perimeter for days while the gunmen held the wards.

09

Abu Sayyaf

In 2014, Isnilon Hapilon pledged bayah — formal oath of allegiance — to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, absorbing his Abu Sayyaf faction into the Islamic State's caliphate project. The pledge turned a kidnap-for-ransom gang into an ISIS province.

10

Radullan Sahiron

Raddulan Sahiron commands Abu Sayyaf with one arm — the other lost to combat — and has carried a $1 million U.S. State Department bounty since 2002. He has evaded capture for over two decades in Sulu.