Group with IS ties linked to crimes in Asian waters
WASHINGTON: Despite the coronavirus pandemic, piracy and other crimes have surged in Asian waters in the first seven months of the year, many committed by a Philippinesbased Islamist group linked to Islamic State, according to a report released this week.
Especially hard hit have been the Sulu Sea and coastal areas of the southern
Philippines, the report by Babel Street, an opensource data analysis company based in Virginia, said.
The author, McDaniel Wicker, a former United States Air Force intelligence officer, said rising crime in that area carried significant security implications.
The Sulu Sea was a key shipping route and controlling crime there would require shifting regional security forces from other areas where they were also needed.
‘‘There’s also a very serious global Islamic terror threat tied up in this,’’ he said, referring to the Abu Sayyaf Group, which is based in the southern Philippines and has links to Islamic State.
There have been at least 50 incidents of piracy, armed robbery and kidnapping for profit in Asian waters during the first seven months of 2020, most of them in the Sulu Sea and the Strait of Malacca, the world’s busiest shipping lane.
Those were double the numbers recorded for the same period last year and represent the highest level since 2016, according to the report.
The Abu Sayyaf Group was responsible for many attacks this year, it said.
The rise in the group’s maritime activities has parallelled steppedup attacks in the southern Philippines.
An August 24 suicide bombing killed 14 people, including security force personnel. — Reuters