In the first week of April, Abu Sabaya took a calculated risk. He decided to leave Dasalan Island northwest of Basilan after getting word that the Marines were on their way to get him and the three hostages he had with him.

He would have preferred to stay on the island a bit longer. Negotiations for ransom, which he believed were being brokered by a local politician, showed signs of progress. All the little demands he’d been asking for were granted—good food and magazines, among others.

A notorious host to smugglers and pirates, Dasalan is a group of islets about two hours away by pump boat from Maluso, Basilan, where the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) had stayed. The Abu Sayyaf was forced to flee to Dasalan following months of intense American surveillance and military patrols close to their camps in Basilan.

Marines based in Maluso reached Dasalan on April 3 and clashed with Sabaya’s men. But they were about six hours late; Sabaya and his captives—Martin and Gracia Burnham and Edibora Yap—had already fled.

From Dasalan, Abu Sabaya, his sparring partner Isnilon Hapilon, and their 40 troops had four choices. They could go back to Basilan or take the long route down to Sulu. They could also travel on a rented pump boat to the coastal towns of Zamboanga del Norte, or simply go to Zamboanga City, just a breath away.

Basilan seemed out of the question at that point. For three months, they had played a draining run-and-rest game with Filipino and American troops on the island.

Sulu, on the other hand, was not Sabaya’s and Hapilon’s territory. Besides, if ransom talks succeeded, they would have had to share the loot with other Abu Sayyaf commanders there, says an intelligence officer monitoring Sabaya.

Confident that his tracks had been fully covered, Sabaya chose Zamboanga del Norte, not an Abu Sayyaf haunt.

It’s a move any man on the run would make at some point, the same officer says. "Para magpalamig (Just to cool off)." Besides, there were no American troops in the province. It seemed a perfect place to release his hostages—then becoming a burden to the gang’s mobility—for a handsome fee.

Hits and misses

Newsbreak interviewed Philippine military officers who were either privy to or who took part in the intelligence and battlefield operations that eventually led to the incident on that rainy afternoon of June 7.

The encounter in the boondocks of Sirawai, Zamboanga del Norte, between the Army’s Scout Rangers and the ASG killed Martin Burnham and Yap and wounded Gracia Burnham. Sabaya got away, and as of this writing, remains scot-free.

The deaths notwithstanding, government has declared "Operation Daybreak" a success. But observers wonder how a year-long operation, backed up for the most part by the best military technology in the world, could have ended the way it did.

Praising his troops, Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes spoke about "variables" in any operation that no amount of planning could anticipate. But even his own soldiers assert that there are flaws in the military’s planning and command and control structure that have hampered and continue to hamper the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf.

In the end, the June 7 incident was a product of hits and misses over the last six months, rivalry and distrust among operating units, and the often symbiotic but at times difficult relationship between Filipino and American commanders.

It also showed the limits of both technology and soldiers operating under tremendous pressure from overeager bosses.

Marines’ role

The timely and relevant intelligence data about the whereabouts of the Burnhams in Basilan and later in Zamboanga del Norte came from the Philippine Marines Intelligence headed by Col. Juancho M. Sabban, assisted by operatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

On the eve of June 7, it was the civilian volunteers and local residents who provided the final leads—a purchase of a lot of bread, sightings of strangers—that helped the military plan a battle formation that eventually boxed in the bandits.

But it was "Sabban and the Marines under his command" who "skillfully shaped the battlefield with timely and accurate predictive analysis," says Brig. Gen. Donald Wurster, commander of American troops training in Basilan, in his letter of commendation to the Marines.

The Marines’ intelligence inputs helped the military high command make "correct...critical decisions," according to Wurster.

This seems ironic since they became notorious in Basilan at the height of the ASG kidnappings under the Ramos government. Accused of coddling the bandits, the Marines were pulled out of Basilan in 1994, their territory since the height of the Moro wars in the 1970s.

But at crunch time, the Americans turned to them because only they had informants closest to the ASG, specifically those who served as couriers for the kidnap group. The Marines and American operatives bonded well in Basilan, notes a defense official. The former provided the human intelligence that guided the latter’s sophisticated spying tools.

From Dasalan, the Marines were able to interrogate the owner of the boat that the ASG rented for their travel northwards. Aided by US equipment, intelligence operatives were informed that three days after the ASG’s takeoff from Dasalan, the bandits had reached the shores of Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte.

Remember Ipil?

Sibuco and the neighboring town of Sirawai can be reached only by boat or aircraft from Zamboanga City. The western part of the province has been neglected all these years—there are no decent roads connecting the two towns to the boundary of Zamboanga City.

By the second week of April, the US-Philippine Marine intelligence tandem confirmed through technical surveillance the presence of the ASG in Sibuco. They reported this to Cimatu, who was chief of the Southern Command (Southcom) at the time. They told Cimatu the information was still insufficient and that "visual contact" was needed to make sure the hostages were there, too.

The province is not entirely hostile and unfamiliar territory to the ASG. There are Muslim communities in the area and "lost commands" roam the province. The town of Ipil in neighboring Zamboanga del Sur was raided by both the ASG and lost commands in April 1995, most of them on board pump boats that came all the way from Basilan.

A small group of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which recently signed an interim peace pact with government, also operates there.

In the first week of May, the ASG entered an MILF zone in Barangay Mantibug, Sibuco, but were refused entry by MILF Commander Suya unless they paid. A firefight ensued, prompting the outnumbered and outgunned MILF to withdraw.

At this point, Cimatu was promoted to Armed Forces chief of staff. In a surprise visit to troops in Basilan he told them to prepare for their "one last and final mission."

Privileged few

The military high command, however, was not prepared to launch "Daybreak" at that time because all they had were intelligence data that had yet to be confirmed on the ground by troops.

Yet, there were telltale signs that the ASG had indeed set foot on the Zamboanga Peninsula. On May 14, Hapilon’s brother, Sahinon, was killed by the police in Zamboanga City.

But military commanders kept on denying media speculations that the Abu Sayyaf were already in Zamboanga. Very few of them knew the real score.

Sensitive intelligence data from the second week of April to May 29, the day of the first encounter between the Rangers and the ASG in Sibuco, was known only to Cimatu and five other officers, says one of his staff officers. The privileged few included Sabban, a Ranger operations staff officer, Task Force Comet commander Maj. Gen. Glicerio Sua, and Wurster.

Secrecy was crucial since this was the closest they ever got to the hostages. Previous leads had been frustrating.

Rescue or ransom?

As early as November last year, the Marines learned from their assets that the couple was being kept at the ASG’s Camp Maksud in barangay Mahayahay, Maluso, Basilan. But the Army got wind of the information, and an over-eager commander immediately sent his troops to the area. They stayed there for two months but failed to spot the Burnhams. All contacts were lost again.

The Marines grumbled that the Army was jeopardizing their intelligence work. Some Army officers, on the other hand, didn’t trust the Marines. Their rivalry has not helped the rescue effort.

By January, the family of the Burnhams had grown desperate. A sister of Gracia flew to Zamboanga City to appeal on radio to Sabaya to release the American missionary couple.

The following month, the Philippine Marines and the Americans scored a breakthrough in their surveillance. Sabaya opened lines for ransom talks and had named his choice broker for the negotiations: former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, the whistleblower whose allegations against former President Joseph Estrada led to the latter’s downfall.

Singson confirmed after the June 7 encounter that he had been told the ASG was in Zamboanga to release the hostages if talks with him were successful.

Sabaya had asked the New Tribes Mission, to which the Burnhams belong, for no less than 50 million pesos in ransom. But while Sabaya had opened ransom talks, the Burnham family in Kansas also tapped another line for the hostages’ release, Khadaffy Janjalani, the acknowledged chief of the ASG who is now allegedly hiding in Sulu.

While US operatives were aware that it was Sabaya and Hapilon who were holding the hostages, they nonetheless did not oppose talks with Janjalani in the hope that he could influence Sabaya to release them, says a source privy to US operations in Mindanao.

In March, the Bush administration adjusted its policy toward paying ransom, pledging to "make every effort" to gain the release of American hostages. In the case of the Burnhams, American authorities were apparently torn between the options of rescue or ransom, thus the two-pronged approach of opening ransom talks and training for a rescue.

By the end of March, the Burnham family through brokers gave 300,000 dollars to a courier of Janjalani in Zamboanga City. The ransom reached Janjalani, but he did not even care to ask Sabaya to release the hostages. Sabaya was furious that Janjalani beat him, according to ASG couriers who served as assets for the Marines.

By end of April, in his fourth week in Zamboanga, Sabaya granted a radio interview about the Burnhams, saying he was open to "last deal" talks and that "it’s up to them [government] if they want to look for dead bodies." He denied receiving any ransom.

Preponderance of forces

Based on information gathered by the Marines from ASG couriers, Sabaya then grew relaxed in Zamboanga del Norte, confident about the progress of the ransom talks.

The brokers had been generous with his little demands that were brought to their tents—Jollibee burgers, pizza, Time and Newsweek magazines, and an endless supply of soda. Proof of Sabaya’s confidence was a last radio interview he granted on May 28, wherein he promised to release Yap to Singson "in one or two days."

Newsbreak learned that it was only last May 21 that the technical intelligence data on the location of the ASG and their captives were finally confirmed by experts. Some military officers advised against moving a full force to the area at once. One suggestion was for small elite teams to move in and first establish "visual contact" with the group and their hostages, not create any disturbance, and then plan the moves from there.

But there were fears that the small teams might be overpowered by the ASG. Thus, the conventional "preponderance of forces" strategy prevailed, according to an officer privy to the planning of the rescue.

On the night of May 26, three companies of the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion—or about 360 men—got orders to move from their camp in Basilan to Sirawai and Sibuco. Before this, the Rangers were given full rest to prepare for the operation.

The following day, May 27, was the first anniversary of the kidnapping of the Burnhams in Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan, and Cimatu thought it a good time to launch "Operation Daybreak."

About 500 troops were deployed for the operation, including the Scout Rangers, 120 soldiers from the US-trained Light Reaction Company (LRC), about 200 Marines from the Reconnaisance (Recon) company of the 2nd Marine Brigade, plus back-ups from the 33rd and 44th infantry battalions (IB). The Rangers’ clash with armed men in Barangay Piacan, Sirawai, on May 29 bolstered all intelligence reports about the presence of the ASG there.

US plans

And how about the Americans?

When US Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz visited Basilan last June 3 and reiterated the Americans’ wish for their training to reach company level, was this connected to the planned rescue of the Burnhams?

It was, says a Zamboanga City-based military officer. The officer opines that the Americans at that point wanted to participate beyond the planning stage to the combat patrol level.

But Filipino commanders were not about to waste time, even if their troops had yet to establish visual contact with the ASG and its captives. "Nagmamadali sila eh (the Army commanders were in a hurry)," he tells Newsbreak. In fact, up to the last few minutes before the June 7 encounter, the Rangers had not sighted the hostages in the ASG tents that they had spotted.

The Lamitan fiasco last year must have been on the commanders’ minds, not to mention mounting public pressure to produce results. In that incident, the Army had already cornered the Abu Sayyaf and their hostages near a church in Lamitan, Basilan, but the bandits still managed to escape.

This time in Sirawai, the Army got help from civilian volunteers who have no love lost for the ASG. They aided the troops in their trek to Barangay Culasian, where the ASG and its captives were resting.

Boxed in

By lunchtime of June 7, the ASG had been effectively boxed in. Four units were deployed on four sides surrounding the mountain where the ASG tents were set up, like four walls in a room with the ASG in the middle.

The four units closest to the ASG tents were the 15th Scout Ranger company, the US-trained LRC, the 44th IB, and the Recon company of the Marines.

The big difference was the big distance that set them apart from each other. The bigger difference was that training day was over; the battlefield opened up new scenarios.

Because the US trained the LRC for this rescue, the ideal situation would have been this: the Rangers and infantry troops serve as the blocking forces that would locate the enemy, clear the area, and call in the LRC to do the surgical strike.

The 15th Scout Ranger company led by Lt. Oliver Almonares was ordered to move near the ASG tents. They were under strict orders to fix the area first, move slowly, and not fire indiscriminately.

As they were positioning themselves, a Ranger scanned the tents—several armed men were resting, the others were serving as lookouts, while the rest were praying.

Ranger Weather

Almonares, who fought with MILF rebels in Camp Abubakar, then instructed four of his snipers to take position and locate the hostages. Like the LRC, the Rangers are trained in close-quarter combat. But the clouds began to form and it started to rain.

In regular combat, this would have been Ranger weather, a Ranger officer tells Newsbreak.

"When we say the weather is cooperating, that means it’s raining. We welcome the rain to quench our thirst and because we are trained to move even under the rain…that’s when the enemy relaxes."

Unfortunately, the enemy in this case was holding hostages. The last thing the Rangers needed was rain and fog that would blur their line of sight. They came close to within 20 meters of the ASG’s tents, and that’s when they planned the raid—without seeing the hostages. A sniper fired the first shot, not the ASG as previously reported.

But what was the hurry? Should they have fired the first shot at that point? It was a tough judgment call. Almonares had been reported as saying that after he realized his men could no longer get closer without being detected, he ordered his troops to fire.

The ASG fought back with their M203s, and scampered to different directions after 10 minutes of firing. Five minutes later, Martin Burnham and Yap lay dead while Gracia Burnham was wounded.

The ASG withdrew. Sabaya, Hapilon, and their men—except the four who died in the encounter—had escaped again. They lost only four firearms.

The escape did not come as a surprise to an Army colonel who spent a long time fighting the Abu Sayyaf. "We are going back to our basic weakness—we don’t secure or anticipate the escape route of the ASG," he tells Newsbreak.

Based on his experience, military commanders are not as meticulous in anticipating the enemy’s escape route as they are when planning a frontal attack. "Hindi talaga namin nababantayan ang likod ng kaaway, laging yun ang mali pero hindi rin kami natututo," he says. In big Army operations, anticipating the enemy escape route is a rule, according to him.

And that’s a lesson Big American Brother can’t do—teach old dogs basic tricks.

—With Julie S. Alipala in Zamboanga City

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