Travel warnings
Many governments give their citizens regular travel advisories covering different countries. Considering recent developments in Marawi City, it is only to be expected that foreign governments would warn their citizens about the risks of terrorism not only in Mindanao but also in other places in the Philippines including Metro Manila, where deadly terrorist attacks have taken place in the past years.
Almost every country faces a terrorist threat, and attacks have been carried out successfully even in advanced economies. Top travel destinations are favorite targets, with terrorists aiming to inflict maximum impact through a high casualty count. In New York, people are mourning the deaths of eight persons who were mowed down last week by an Uzbek driving a truck in Lower Manhattan. Motor vehicles have been weaponized by terrorists, with deadly attacks launched across Europe.
What sets apart countries is the response to the threat. US authorities quickly arrested the Uzbek. Spanish authorities tracked down a terror cell responsible for the van attack last August that killed about a dozen pedestrians, with more dying later, along Barcelona’s famed Las Ramblas tourist street. Eight of the 12 suspects have been killed by security forces while four are on trial, with authorities tracing possible international links.
In the Philippines, it took five months to end the siege of Marawi, but the commanders of the Islamic State-inspired Maute group and Abu Sayyaf were killed. Yesterday the Indonesian widow of Omarkhayam Maute was arrested in Iligan and their six children taken into custody by the state. Minhati Madrais would be detained like her mother-in-law Ominta or Farhana Romato-Maute, accused financier of the terrorists. Farhana’s estranged husband Cayamora died while in detention reportedly after his blood pressure shot up.
The battle against the Abu Sayyaf elsewhere in Mindanao has been more complicated, as the group continues to kidnap and hold on to mostly foreign hostages in the jungles of Sulu. Other countries have warned their citizens about the threat posed by the Abu Sayyaf and other violent groups in the Philippines. The government will just have to reassure the world that the country has reasonable capability to address the terrorist threat.