WITH MARAWI ATTACK
as far away as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chechnya and Morocco — alongside locals in Marawi, has alarmed security officials.
For some time, governments in Southeast Asia have been worried about what happens when battle-hardened IS fighters from their countries return home as the group loses ground in the Middle East, and now they have added concerns about the region becoming a magnet for foreign jihadists.
“If we do nothing, they get a foothold in this region,” said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.
Defence and military officials in the Philippines said that all four of the country’s pro-IS groups sent fighters to Marawi with the intention of establishing the city as a Southeast Asian “wilayat”, or governorate, for the radical group.
Roiled for decades by Islamic separatists, communist rebels, and warlords, Mindanao was fertile ground for IS’s ideology to take root. This is the one region in this largely Catholic country to have a significant Muslim minority, with Marawi itself predominantly Muslim.
The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC), a New York-based think tank, said in a report this week that IS was leveraging militant groups in Southeast Asia to solidify and expand its presence in the region. The key will be how well it manages relations with the region’s jihadi old guard, CTC said.
The Maute group’s attack is the biggest challenge faced by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte since coming to power last June. He has declared martial law in Mindanao, which is his political base.
His defence forces were caught off guard by the assault and have had difficulty in regaining control of the city, as on Saturday, they were struggling to wipe out pockets of resistance.
Last Monday, Brigadier-General Nixon Fortes, the commander of the army brigade in Marawi, was sacked.
An army spokesman said this was unrelated to the battle. But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Fortes was dismissed because not all his forces were in the city when the rebels began their rampage, even though military intelligence had indicated that Islamist militants were amassing there.
The assault came just months after security forces attacked the mountain lair of Isnilon Hapilon, a long-time leader of Abu Sayyaf, or “Father of the Sword”, a notorious Islamist militant group known for kidnapping. He swore allegiance to IS in 2014, and quickly got other groups to join him.
Most important among them was the Maute group, run by brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute from a well-known family in Marawi.
According to a statement on a social media group used by Maute fighters, the group wants to cleanse Marawi of Christians, Shia Muslims, and polytheists. It also wants to ban betting, karaoke and so-called “relationship dating”. Reuters