But leading reformers are sure they are an organised paramilitary force. The pro-reform Intelligence Minister, Ali Yunesi, was quoted in newspapers a few days ago as saying: “These people who come to break up rallies and create turmoil… some are former intelligence ministry personnel, or are now in the ministry.”Tehran has been quiet over the summer, with the universities on vacation. But after this weekend, everyone’s eyes are on the autumn when the students return, fearing that violence may return with them.. Until four months ago, few people in the world had heard of the rabble of mercenaries, Islamic students and mujahedin known as Abu Sayyaf.

Until four months ago, few people in the world had heard of the rabble of mercenaries, Islamic students and mujahedin known as Abu Sayyaf.
Filipinos knew of them as a small but brutal splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is fighting for an independent state in the southern island of Mindanao. Those with a special interest in such matters might have remembered the name in connection with Ramzi Yousef, the man convicted in 1997 of trying to blow up New York’s World Trade Center with a bomb, who had holed up with them in the mid-Nineties.But Abu Sayyaf was as remote from the concerns of the Western world as the dens where its members based themselves, on a string of poor, jungly islands with names such as Basilan, Jolo and Tawi-tawi. The continuing hostage saga in the Philippines has changed all that.Abu Sayyaf may be steadily releasing its Western hostages – yesterday a South African man, Carel Strydom, walked free, leaving six Westerners and 13 from the Philippines still in captivity. But the deal struck for their release, and the multi-million-pound ransom Abu Sayyaf is widely believed to have been paid, marks its emergence as one of the world’s most successful Islamic terrorist groups, and a force to be reckoned with throughout South-East Asia.Abu Sayyaf – the name means “sword of God” – emerged from the margins of Asia’s two great Islamic causes of recent years: the war in Afghanistan, and the independence struggles of the Muslims of the southern Philippines.For decades, the latter was dominated by a group of secular guerrillas called the Moro National Liberation Front. In 1996, the MNLF leader, Nur Misuari, came to terms with the Manila government in return for limited autonomy for the predominantly Muslim population on the southern island of Mindanao.Some of Mr Misuari’s group broke away to join the overtly Muslim MILF, which sustains an intermittent war with the Philippines armed forces. On the fringes of the struggle, based on the isolated islands strung between the Philippines and Borneo, was a third group – Abu Sayyaf.It was founded in 1991 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, a fisherman’s son from the island of Basilan, who won a scholarship to study Arabic and law in Saudi Arabia and who travelled to Pakistan in 1980 to join the mujahedin fighting against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.At this time he made contact with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive who tops the United States’s most-wanted list.

Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, Mr Bin Laden’s brother-in-law, gave him the funds – and perhaps the guns – to establish Abu Sayyaf, and he was also helped by the British-educated Yousef. He may also have spent time in Libya; ironically, but by no means coincidentally, it is the government of Muammar Gaddafi that has negotiated this week’s hostage releases.At its foundation, Abu Sayyaf had no more than 30 members, a mixture of Islamic students from Iran and Janjalani’s former colleagues in the mujahedin.The group announced itself by killing two people with a bomb attack in Zamboanga in 1991. Four years later it notched up its greatest outrage, an attack on the Mindanao town of Ipil in which 50 civilians died. By 1996 membership had risen to 350 and its arsenal to about 230 firearms, although numbers declined again after Janjalani was killed in a shoot-out with Philippines police in 1998.The group has always kept an eye out for money-making opportunities, as well as murdering missionaries, planting bombs and seizing hostages (until April’s snatch of Western tourists from a Malaysian resort island, they were generally Filipinos) There have also been a number of successful bank raids. But never had Abu Sayyaf hit a jackpot like the one it landed this week.At first, Abu Sayyaf’s demands were political, including the release of Yousef and other Islamic prisoners from jails in the United States. Soon, though, they settled to the serious business of negotiating ransoms.Respectable governments do not pay off terrorists, because it encourages them to take hostages again.

But, whoever the ultimate source of the payments may be, it is generally accepted that – by means of the Libyans – large sums are changing hands in return for the hostages.Unofficial estimates put the figure at up to $17m (£11.5m). The chief of the Philippines armed forces, General Angelo Reyes, says the group is already shopping for arms and ammunition, and has splashed out on a new speedboat and 10 motorcycles.Most significantly, it is offering $1,100 to new recruits – a sum a Muslim fisherman with a family can only dream of earning legitimately. As many as 2,500 new recruits have responded because, whatever the hostage crisis of the past four months may have done for the cause of independence, has turned into very good business for Abu Sayyaf.. The Southern Indian state of Karnataka yesterday dropped all charges against 121 allies of a jungle bandit, fulfilling a key demand for the release of a local film star he kidnapped four weeks ago. The Southern Indian state of Karnataka yesterday dropped all charges against 121 allies of a jungle bandit, fulfilling a key demand for the release of a local film star he kidnapped four weeks ago.
Veerappan seized the Kannada-language actor Rajkumar and three other people on 30 July from a remote farm, demanding the release of his allies and compensation for victims of alleged police atrocities.”The government has passed orders to drop all charges against 51 prisoners who are now in jail and 70 others who are out on bail,” the chief minister, S M Krishna, told a news conference in the state capital, Bangalore.He said the prisoners would be freed once their lawyers organised financial guarantees of between 10,000 and 20,000 rupees (£140-£280) demanded by a court in Mysore, where they are imprisoned.The Press Trust of India said some of Karnataka’s leading film stars were trying to raise the money to release the prisoners, who are mostly villagers accused of helping Veerappan in his criminal activities.Mr Krishna said that the government’s emissary would be returning to the jungle late last night to convey to Veerappan the government’s decision to fulfil his demands.Veerappan, known as the Bandit King, has roamed the jungles of southern India for decades.

He is accused of 120 murders, the slaughter of 2,000 elephants and smuggling ivory and sandalwood worth millions of dollars. His kidnapping of 72-year-old Rajkumar sparked riots in Karnataka, where the veteran of 210 films is a cult figure.Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where Rajkumar was kidnapped, last week set up a compensation fund of 50 million rupees each to pay those identified by a judicial commission as victims of police atrocities (Reuters). A British language school director has been arrested in Cambodia after being allegedly caught making pornographic videos of girls in a public park. A British language school director has been arrested in Cambodia after being allegedly caught making pornographic videos of girls in a public park.
Jon Keeler, the director of the London School of English in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, was taken into custody on Saturday in the small town of Takhmau, 10 miles south of the capital.Police officials and prosecutors said that Mr Keeler, 55, had been charged after being found making videos in the park with four street girls, two aged 8 and two aged 10, following complaints from local stall holders.He allegedly bribed the children with a bag of sweets to lift their skirts or strip, and then persuaded them to perform indecent acts on themselves while he filmed them.Chuon Sovann, the military police commander for Kandal province, said several people had complained about his behaviour. “We confiscated a lot of evidence, including a video camera and a pornographic video showing the four girls.”Chheng Phat, a prosecutor with the Kandal provincial court, said the police were also investigating to see whether the girls had been drugged. “We have charged him with pornography involving underage girls,” he said.If convicted, Mr Keeler faces 10 to 20 years in prison. British embassy officials and his lawyer, Keo Kim San, have visited Mr Keeler but refused to comment on his case.