RAJAH SULAIMAN GROUP (RSG)
Rajah Sulaiman Group (RSG) was a small Islamic radical terror group, founded in 1999 by Ahmad Islam Santos (pic). Rajah Sulaiman Group (RSG) was based in the Islamic Southern Philippines in Mindanao, but operated mainly in and around the Philippines’s capital – Manila in the years 2002-7. The group is named on the name of a local monarch that ruled Manila and the Northern Philippines in the late 16th century.
Khadafy Janjalani, the Abu Sayyaf leader confirmed in a radio interview that Abu Sayyaf trained about 80 Rajah Sulaiman activists in his camps in Mindanao in 2002-3. Members of Rajah Sulaiman assisted Abu Sayyaf with the “Superferry 14” attack, on 02/28/2004.
The leader of the group Ahmad Islam Santos was caught with 7 of his men, on 10/26/2005, in a hideout apartment in Zamboanga, an Island in the Southern Philippines, in a pre-dawn raid. Weapons, explosives and maps of the capital, Manila, were reportedly seized during the raid. The authorities said they were planning bomb attacks in predominantly Christian cities around the Philippines.
Ahmad Islam Santos, born as Hilarion del Rosario to a Christian family, on 03/16/1966. He converted to Islam while working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1993. He is believed to have founded the Rajah Solayman Movement in the late 1990s. Ahmad Islam Santos is then thought to have received bomb training from members of INDONESIAN JI on the island of Mindanao.
A reward of $500,000 was presented to two Filipino citizens for providing key information that lead to the arrest of Ahmad Islam Santos.
Ahmad Islam Santos confirmed his group cooperated also with the INDONESIAN JI and received money from the same sources that funded the Bali ‘02 Bombings.
* Ahmad Islam Santos’s brother, Tairon Santos, also known as Daud, was arrested in 04/2005 with explosives. Tairon Santos was released on bail and immediately disappeared. In a radio phone interview on 11/05/2005, aired in the Southern Philippines Tairon Santos denied being a terrorist.
Summary –
Rajah Sulaiman Group (RSG) was a small but dangerous group. The group operated very much as an offshoot of Abu Sayyaf for special operations since its logistic capacity was very limited.
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