Foiled attack in the Philippines staged by IS-linked terrorists
>> MANILA: A foiled attack on a central Philippine resort island this week was a kidnapping and bombing mission by at least three extremist groups affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) in one of their most daring terror plots, security officials said yesterday.
The Philippine military initially said that government forces, backed by air strikes, successfully detected and thwarted a kidnapping plot by Abu Sayyaf militants in the island province of Bohol, a popular tourist destination far from the militants’ southern jungle bases.
Three soldiers, a policeman, two villagers and at least four militants, including key Abu Sayyaf commander and spokesman Moammar Askali, were killed in the day-long siege on Tuesday in a hinterland village in Bohol’s Inabanga town.
Military spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla said combined military and police forces thwarted in Bohol “major terrorist activities” by the militants, who were aiming to divert the military’s focus from intense offensives on the militants’ jungle encampments in southern Sulu province and outlying islands.
“The persons who died in the area, some of whom have been identified to be known terrorists, are still the subject of a continuing investigation to ascertain their participation,” Brig Gen Padilla said, adding that the result of the investigation would be made public in the near future.
Interviews with three security officials, along with documents and pictures, indicated that three extremist groups that have pledged allegiance to the IS deployed their leading bombers and fighters, some of whom wore IS-style black flag patches, for the Bohol assault.
While considered a key commander of Abu Sayyaf, Mr Askali had also led a hardline Abu Sayyaf faction called the Marakat Ansar Battalion, which is among 10 small armed groups that pledged allegiance to IS about three years ago and formed an IS-inspired alliance in the southern Philippines. Mr Askali had been implicated in the beheadings of two Canadian hostages last year and a German tourist in February in Sulu’s jungles, the officials said.
Troops recovered four assault rifles, rifle grenades and a sack load of bomb-making materials, including detonating cords, blasting caps and electronic bomb parts, a military report said.
It remains unclear what the targets of the militants were, but Bohol draws foreign and local tourists for its beach resorts, waterfalls, caves and wildlife.
Militants from the three IS-linked groups first collaborated by bombing a night market in southern Davao city, President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown, in a 2016 attack that killed 15 people and prompted Mr Duterte to declare a state of lawless violence. The Bohol attack was the farthest and most daring plot so far by the allied militants. Mr Duterte has threatened to place the South under martial law if terrorism threats spiral out of control.