An investigation of the philosophical changes of the Abu Sayyaf group using geospatial analysis

Political scientists believe that the Abu Sayyaf Group's (ASG) penchant for accumulating funds through hostage ransoming and other criminal activity has caused the organization to drift away from its Islamic foundations to become bandits. This research explores this claim by applying geospatial analysis to ASG terrorist activity to evaluate if ASG attack data are congruent with original political objectives or more suited to profitdriven criminal patterns of activity. Four research objectives are used that explore if attack data display an operational shift. The first three compare data distribution to map overlays of economic level, ethnicity and religion to identify where attack majorities occur. This identifies if the ASG is prone to attacking areas populated by their constituency. The fourth objective examines the history of the ASG by comparing it to terrorist ideological transformation theory. The results of these objectives are combined in the decision rule to evaluate if ASG data supports the claims of a philosophical shift. Applied methods include spatio-temporal analysis and geostatistics (hot spot analysis and mean center progression). Results of analysis indicate that the majority of ASG attacks occur in a trivariate convergence area of map overlays. Temporal analysis shows that attacks localized and peaked around the Constituency Overlay in accordance with benchmarks for a terror-to-crime shift. It is concluded that the majority of ASG attacks are driven towards crime due to a high frequency of moneymaking attacks within areas of constituency. Based on the decision rule, the patterns of attack data indicate that ASG operations have been more inclined towards criminal goals since the death of their founder, Abdurajak Janjalani.