MV SuperFerry 14 as White Sanpo 2 in 1987 | |
History | |
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Japan | |
Name | White Sanpo 2 |
Owner |
|
Operator |
|
Port of registry | Imabari, Japan |
Route | Matsuyama – Imabari – Kobe |
Builder | Hayashikane Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Shimonoseki, Japan |
Yard number | 1240 |
Launched | February 1981 |
Maiden voyage | June 1981 |
In service | 1981–2000 |
Out of service | June 2000 |
Identification | IMO number: 8004210 |
Fate | Sold to WG&A SuperFerry |
Philippines | |
Name | MV SuperFerry 14 |
Owner | WG&A Philippines |
Operator | WG&A SuperFerry |
Port of registry | Manila, Philippines |
Route | Manila - Bacolod - Iloilo – Cagayan de Oro (2004) |
Maiden voyage | 2000 |
In service | 2000–2004 |
Out of service | February 27, 2004 |
Fate | Destroyed by fire as a result of a terrorist attack by Abu Sayyaf on February 27, 2004, off the coast of Corregidor |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | ROPAX Ferry |
Tonnage | 10,181.77 GT |
Length | 155.6 |
Beam | 23.6 m |
Draft | 5.8 m |
Installed power | dual SEMT Pielstick diesel marine engines; 23,400 hp (combined) |
Propulsion | dual propellers |
Speed | 24 knots (max) |
Capacity | 1,747 passengers |
SuperFerry 14 bombing | |
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Location | Manila Bay, Philippines |
Date | February 27, 2004 (UTC+8) |
Target | MV SuperFerry 14 |
Attack type | bombing |
Deaths | 116 |
Perpetrators | Abu Sayyaf |
MV SuperFerry 14 was a Philippine registered roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferry that was attacked on February 27, 2004 by terrorist group Abu Sayyaf that resulted in the destruction of the ferry and the deaths of 116 people in the Philippines' deadliest terrorist attack. [1] [2] [3] Six children less than five years old, and nine children between six and 16 years of age were among the dead or missing, including six students on a championship team sent by schools in northern Mindanao to compete in a journalism contest. [4]
MV SuperFerry 14 was built by Hayashikane Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd. in Shimonoseki, Japan in February 1981 as the White Sanpo 2 (Japanese : ほわいとさんぽう2) for the Japanese company Sanpo Kaiun K.K. (Japanese : 三宝海運) and was transferred to Ehime Hanshin Ferry (Japanese : 愛媛阪神フェリー) in 1997. She had three passenger decks and a single car deck which was accessible by ramps at the bow and the stern, a common feature of a RoPax Ferry. She had extensive passenger facilities and had a luxurious interior. She featured a twin QE2 inspired funnel. She was painted with a giant phoenix on the side of the hull.[ citation needed ]
She was 155.6 meters long, 23.6 meters wide, and had a depth of 13.0 meters. She had a gross tonnage of 10,181.77. She was eventually sold to WG&A in the year 2000 where she was renamed the MV SuperFerry 14. At the time of her service in the Philippines, her interior was more opulent than what is normally found in a domestic ferry. WG&A marketed her differently to distinguish herself from other ferries in her class.[ citation needed ]
On the night of February 26, the 10,192-ton ferry sailed out of Manila for Cagayan de Oro via Bacolod and Iloilo City with 899 recorded passengers and crew aboard. [5] A television set containing a 3.6-kilogram (7.9 lb) TNT bomb had been placed on board in the lower, more-crowded decks. [4] [6]
An hour after at 11 p.m. sailing just off either El Fraile [4] or Corregidor Island [6] an explosion tore through the vessel, starting a fire that engulfed the ship. [6] Captain Ceferino Manzo issued the order to abandon ship at about 1:30 a.m., February 27. [7] As the fire spread across the vessel most of the survivors jumped into the sea or boarded rescue boats. By February 29, officials had accounted for 565 of the 744 recorded passengers and all but two of the 155 crew members. [8]
In the days following the blast, the recovery of the dead and missing, calculated at around 180 on February 29, was slow. Officials stated the missing may have been trapped inside the blazing ferry, have drowned in Manila Bay and that others may have been picked up by fishing boats. [8] The recovery of bodies took several months, with only four bodies recovered by Coast Guard divers from the half-submerged ferry in the first week, despite it having been towed to shallower waters near Mariveles town, west of Manila. [5] [8] [9] At least another 12 bodies, some displaying blast injuries, were recovered by divers in the days up until the 7th. [5] Eventually, 63 bodies were recovered while another 53 remained missing, presumed dead. [6]
Despite claims from various terrorist groups, the blast was initially thought to have been an accident, caused by a gas explosion. Sabotage was initially ruled out. [5]
However, at the marine board of inquiry hearing in late March 2004, a safety supervisor with the ship's owner, WG&A, testified that about 150 survivors told him an explosion took place in the tourist section around the general area of bunk 51. The Captain of the ferry, Ceferino Manzo, testified in the same hearing that the entire tourist section was engulfed in "thick black smoke that smelled like gunpowder." [10]
After divers righted the ferry, five months after it sank, they found evidence of a bomb blast. A man named Redondo Cain Dellosa, a Rajah Sulaiman Movement member, confessed to planting a bomb, triggered by a timing device, on board for the Abu Sayyaf group. [6] He held a ticket on the ferry for bunk 51B, where the bomb was placed, and disembarked before the ship's departure. [4]
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced on October 11, 2004, that investigators had concluded that the explosion had been caused by a bomb. She said six suspects had been arrested in connection with the bombing and that the masterminds, Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman, were still at large. It was believed that Abu Sayyaf bombed Superferry 14 because the company that owned it, WG&A, did not comply with a letter demanding $1 million in protection money. The vessel was later raised and sold for scrap. [11]
Ruben Omar Pestano Lavilla, Jr., a listed terrorist of U.S. State Department, and founder of Philippine terror group Rajah Sulaiman Movement, was arrested in Bahrain on July 24, 2008. Anti-Terrorism Council Chairman Eduardo Ermita announced that Lavilla, the alleged mastermind of the Superferry 14 bombing, was deported from Bahrain to the Philippines on August 30. Included in the sanctioned list of the United Nations Security Council, [12] [13] the RSM leader was also implicated in the February 14, 2005 bombings at Glorietta, and has pending murder case before the Makati Regional Trial Court for the bombings. [14]
Abu Sayyaf, officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, is a Jihadist militant and pirate group that followed the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than five decades, Moro groups had been engaged in an insurgency seeking to make Moro Province independent. The group is considered violent and is responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of MV Superferry 14 in 2004, which killed 116 people. The name of the group was derived from Arabic abu, and sayyaf. As of April 2023, the group was estimated to have about 20 members, down from 1,250 in 2000. They use mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles.
Jemaah Islamiyah was a Southeast Asian Islamist militant group based in Indonesia, which was dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. On 25 October 2002, immediately following the JI-perpetrated 2002 Bali bombings, JI was added to the UN Security Council Resolution 1267.
The 2002 Zamboanga bombings were a series of attacks perpetrated on the October 2, 17 and 21, 2002, around the southern Philippine port of Zamboanga City, Mindanao island. Eleven people died and over 180 others were wounded in the four bomb attacks allegedly perpetrated by Islamic extremists with connections to the Abu Sayyaf insurgent group.
Khadaffy Abubakar Janjalani was a Filipino Islamist militant who was the leader of the Moro militant group known as Abu Sayyaf and the leader of one of its factions. He was a staunch Wahhabi follower.
Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines (OEF-P) or Operation Freedom Eagle was part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the global War on Terror. The Operation targeted the various Jihadist terror groups operating in the country. By 2009, about 600 U.S. military personnel were advising and assisting the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the Southern Philippines. In addition, by 2014, the CIA had sent its elite paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division to hunt down and kill or capture key terrorist leaders. This group had the most success in combating and capturing Al-Qaeda leaders and the leaders of associated groups like Abu Sayyaf.
The Moro conflict was an insurgency in the Mindanao region of the Philippines which involved multiple armed groups. A decades-long peace process has resulted in various peace deals have been signed between the Philippine government and two major armed groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but other smaller armed groups continue to exist. In 2017, the peace council settled around 138 clan conflicts.
Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, also known by the nom de guerreAbu Abdullah al-Filipini, was a Filipino Islamist militant affiliated with ISIS. He was formerly leader of Abu Sayyaf Group, before its battalions pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. An April 2016 issue of ISIL's weekly newsletter Al Naba said that Hapilon had been appointed as "emir of all Islamic State forces in the Philippines".
Jainal Antel Sali Jr. was a Filipino militant who was a senior leader of Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.
SuperFerry was one of the largest ferry companies in the Philippines before it was purchased by Negros Navigation, which simultaneously was purchased by the Chinese government through its private equity fund the China-Asean Investment Cooperation Fund, and became 2GO Travel, part of the 2GO Group.
The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Abu Sayyaf, a militant group based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than four decades, Moro groups have been engaged in an insurgency for an independent province in the country.
Dawlah Islamiya, also called Islamic State of Lanao and formerly named as the Maute Group, is a radical Islamist group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas and foreign fighters. Based in Lanao del Sur, it was founded by brothers Abdullah and Omar Maute. The organization, which also conducted a protection racket operation in the municipality of Butig, clashes on several occasions with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the most significant of which began in May 2017 and culminated in the siege of Marawi.
A bombing at the Roxas Night Market occurred in Davao City, Philippines, on September 2, 2016, causing at least 14 deaths and 70 injuries. On September 13, 2016, one of those injured, a pregnant woman, died, bringing the death toll up to 15.
The Valentine's Day bombings happened on 14 February 2005 in different cities in the Philippines. Three bombs exploded on that day killing at least nine people and injuring more than a hundred. Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility and three members of the group were convicted of murder in one bombing.
The Philippines is one of the state opponents of the militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), more commonly referred to by the local media as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
This is a chronology of the Moro conflict, an ongoing armed conflict in the southern Philippines between jihadist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf Group, the Maute Group, Jemaah Islamiyah, and Islamic State affiliates, mainstream separatist groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and the Philippine Government since 1971. Much of the fighting has been concentrated on the island of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, with spillover incidents and attacks occurring in the Philippine capital Manila and neighboring countries such as Malaysia.
On July 31, 2018, a bomb exploded in the town of Lamitan in Basilan, Philippines.
In the morning of January 27, 2019, two bombs exploded at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines. Twenty people were killed and 102 others injured. The bombings took place a week after the autonomy plebiscite held on January 21 for the creation of Bangsamoro. It is believed that the Abu Sayyaf carried out the attacks, and the Islamic State claimed responsibility. President Rodrigo Duterte responded by issuing an "all-out war" directive against the Abu Sayyaf. The bombings were widely condemned by other countries and organizations.
The 2020 Jolo bombings occurred on August 24, 2020, when insurgents alleged to be jihadists from the Abu Sayyaf group detonated two bombs in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines, killing 14 people and wounding 75 others. The first occurred as Philippine Army personnel were assisting in carrying out COVID-19 humanitarian efforts. The second, a suicide bombing, was carried out near the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral.