Abu Sayyaf operates in the southern Philippines, a kidnap-for-ransom group that reporter Jonathan Miller says even Osama bin Laden reportedly considered too extreme for al-Qaeda's taste. Filming in February 2002, Miller travels into the group's home territory to investigate claimed links between Abu Sayyaf and the wider al-Qaeda network in Southeast Asia, and to find out why young Filipinos are signing up. He meets local sources and, where possible, people connected to the group itself, piecing together how kidnapping campaigns fund the organization and how it recruits in poor, remote communities. The film sits inside the post-9/11 hunt for al-Qaeda affiliates, treating Abu Sayyaf as a test case for how far the terrorist network's reach actually extends beyond the Middle East and Afghanistan. It offers no tidy resolution, only Miller's on-the-ground reporting from a conflict most viewers outside the region would otherwise never see.