Philippines: Scores of Islamic State Fighters on Mindanao Island
Philippines: Scores of Islamic State Fighters on Mindanao Island by Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Carmela Fonbuena – The Guardian
Foreign fighters believed to be galvanising local groups as push to declare Islamic caliphate intensifies.
The threat of Islamic State is mounting again in the Philippines, with estimates there could be between 40 to 100 foreign fighters, and a growing momentum among local pro-Islamic State militant groups.
In May last year, the Mindanao city of Marawi was overrun by Isis fighters and a caliphate declared. It took a bloody, five-month siege by the army, in which 1,200 lives were lost, for the government to regain control.
But one year on from Marawi’s liberation, Prof Rommel Banlaoi, chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, told the Guardian that he had seen records of up to 100 foreign fighters on the island – a combination of old and new arrivals since the Marawi siege last year – who want to re-establish the east Asia wilayah (or East Asia Isis province) crushed in the fighting.
Banlaoi said the fighters in Mindanao had mainly travelled from neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia but also Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East.
A high-ranking intelligence officer gave figures of that closely matched Banlaoi’s records. “There are about 40 foreign fighters remaining in the country, but 40 others are in the watchlist,” said the officer, who asked to remain unnamed because because he was not authorised to speak to the media…