MANILA, 26 March 2003 — The governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) condemned the war in Iraq as an “invasion” that justifies jihad, but also said yesterday he could not refuse American aid for his impoverished region.

Parouk Hussin, a former Muslim separatist leader, said the US-led attack “is one situation where the element of jihad (holy war) is justified.”

“In the eyes of the Iraqis — and the Muslim world, for that matter — this is an invasion,” he told reporters. “I am not criticizing the US government. I am just expressing the majority observation vis-a-vis the war against Iraq.

“When you are invaded, defend yourselves, even with your lives,” he said, adding that Filipino Muslims could express support with their “brother Iraqis” in many ways, such as offering sympathy and prayers.

He said many Filipino Muslims, if asked, would be willing to volunteer to fight alongside Iraqis in the same way his fellow Muslim students offered to fight in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

Hussin was “foreign minister” of the Moro National Liberation Front when the Muslim separatist group inked a peace deal with the Manila government in 1996.

The peace pact led to limited autonomy for five Muslim-dominated provinces comprising the most impoverished region in the Philippines.

He said assistance from the US Agency for International Development and donations from Canada and Japan were helping his region rise from poverty. The $250 per capita income in his region remains way below the national average of about $1,000, he said.

Asked whether his opposition to the war would move him to refuse further American aid, Hussin said: “I cannot in conscience reject US aid because this is for the people. This is something I cannot provide, that even my own government cannot provide.”

He warned, however, that the war in Iraq could spark a terrorist backlash.

“This war is a war of a superpower against a weak nation,” he said. “When you are weak, sometimes you have the tendency to muster whatever resources are at your command. Very often this manifests in the form of taking the law into your hands, in the form of terrorist activities.”

The Philippine government is battling another Muslim separatist faction, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which lost a major stronghold in Central Mindanao in an offensive by government troops last month.