Southeast Asian neighbors to join forces against militants

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia says it’s looking to set up joint patrols with the Philippines and Malaysia to prevent Islamic militants who have laid siege to a city in the southern Philippines from entering its territorial waters.

Indonesia’s military chief, General Gatot Nurmantyo, said on Monday that he and Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu would meet next week with their counterparts from Malaysia and the Philippines on Indonesia’s Tarakan island in northern Borneo, just across the border from Sabah, Malaysia. He said they’ll discuss increasing security and signing an agreement to step up joint patrols.

The conflict in the city of Marawi has raised fears that the Islamic State group’s violent ideology is gaining a footholdinthePhilippines’restive south, where Muslim separatists have fought for greater autonomy for decades.

Nurmantyo, speaking with reporters and military officials in the capital, Jakarta, said Indonesia needs to be aware of the movement of IS-aligned militants in the Philippines who assaulted Marawi three weeks ago becauseIndonesiaalreadyhas sleeper cells that most likely have been long embedded in thecountry.HesaidIS-affiliated cells exist in all of Indonesia’s provinces except Papua.

“It’s easy to jump from Marawi to Indonesia and we must all beware of sleeper cells being activated in Indonesia,” Nurmantyo said.

Sustained crackdown

Authorities in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majoritynation,have carried out a sustained crackdown on militants since the 2002 bombings by al-Qaidaaffiliated radicals that killed 202 people in Bali. In recent years, it has faced a new threat as the rise of IS in the Middle East has breathed new life into local militant networksandraisedconcerns about the risk of Indonesian fighters returning home.

Marawi is located about 500 kilometers north of Sangihe Island in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province.

Major General Ganip Warsito, the regional military chief overseeing the closest areas to the Philippines said the Indonesian army, navy and air force have deployed extra troops to boost security in the region.

“So far, we have not found any indication of Islamic militants infiltrating from the Philippines to our territory,” Warsito said. “We have conducted intelligence, territorial and combat operations to anticipate it.”

Meanwhile, five civilians were shot dead by militants they attempted to escape from Marawi on Monday night, bringing the total number of civilians killed to 26.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Ernesto Abella told a news conference on Tuesday that a further eight civilians were captured by the militants.