Another Marawistyle siege possible, warns MILF head

MANILA: The chief of the Philippines’ main Muslim rebel group warned yesterday that fighters loyal to the Islamic State group, flush with looted guns and cash, could seize another Filipino city after Marawi last year.

Murad Ebrahim has billed his Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has made peace with the government, as a rival to IS for the hearts and minds of angry young Muslims in the impoverished south.

Murad said MILF was battling pro-IS groups for influence in schools as the fighters worked to infiltrate madrasah and secular universities.

At the same time, IS gunmen were making their way into the southern Philippines from Malaysia and Indonesia, he added, but gave no estimates.

A five-month siege flattened Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao and claimed more than 1,100 lives.

Murad said conditions on the ground were ripe for another Marawi-style siege.

“The IS group continues to penetrate us because it is being displaced in the Middle East. It wants to have another place.

“The chances of having another Marawi cannot be overruled.”

Murad urged President Rodrigo Duterte’s government to speed up the passage of a Muslim self-rule law to flesh out the peace accord, warning that proIS militants were recruiting for a new attack.

“If the (self-rule law) will not be passed, these extremist groups can recruit more adherents, because it will prove their theory that there is no hope in the peace process.”