News Story: US Army Pacific official - ISIS a growing threat in the Philippines

By: David B. Larter

BETHESDA, Md. — The Islamic State group’s affiliates in the southern portion of the U.S.-allied nation of the Philippines is a growing threat to U.S. security, a U.S. Army Pacific official said Tuesday at the Global Explosive Ordnance Disposal Symposium & Exhibition.

The group seized the city of Marawi on the Philippine island of Mindanao in late May and have turned the city of 200,000 inhabitants into a battlefield comparable to the brutal slog faced by allied forces trying to take back the Iraqi city of Mosul.

“ISIS affiliated elements took over that city on the 23rd of May, and the Philippine Army is still trying to get it back,” said Col. Gerardo Meneses, director of the Asia-Pacific Counter-IED Fusion Center, which monitors improvised explosive device activity in the region. “It’s a very Mosul-like situation. It’s not making headlines but they’ve had over 600 casualties there. … This is a growing threat.”

Meneses’ organization published a report in June highlighting the dangers posed by the sudden boost the battle of Marawi has been to ISIS-Philippines’ profile in the global jihadi movement and to its leader Isnilon Hapilon.

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News Story: Philippines warned - Mindanao seen as new battlefield of regional extremists

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines — Mindanao might be a new battlefield accessible to regional extremists if the Abu Sayyaf Group-Maute coalition holds on to Marawi City, an American analyst said.

Thomas Sanderson, the transnational threats project director at influential think tank CSIS, warned that without a short-term solution to the fighting in Marawi and a long-term solution to problems in Mindanao, ISIS could come to see Mindanao as its primary destination.

The ongoing fighting in Marawi would eventually attract more foreign and local fighters, financial support and media attention, according to Sanderson.

"None of that is good for the security of the Philippine nation, especially local civilians (Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and others) in desperate need of economic development and responsive government," Sanderson said in his testimony before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

Sanderson noted that the battle in Marawi has become the focal point of activity of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Southeast Asia as more than 500 militant fighters have joined the fight.

The diversity of nationalities among militant casualties raises alarm in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency communities.

"Among the roughly 80 foreign fighters thought to have been in the battle, the dead included fighters from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Chechnya, Yemen, Indonesia, Malaysia," Sanderson said.

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News Story: US analysts - Time not on AFP’s side in Marawi

By Jose Katigbak

WASHINGTON – The longer militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) prevent Philippine security forces from liberating besieged Marawi City in Mindanao, the better their chances of attracting more foreign and local fighters and financial support, an expert on terrorism has told US legislators.

Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Transnational Threats Project director Thomas Sanderson said that as the Abu Sayyaf group and the Maute coalition hold on in Marawi, the IS could come to see this as a primary, extra-regional destination as its fortunes tumble in the Middle East and North Africa.

Sanderson told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the battle for Marawi, now in its eighth week, has become the focal point of IS activity in Southeast Asia.

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News Story: Retaking Marawi - Snipers, mortars, bombs

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)

MANILA, Philippines - Sprawled on the boarded-up balcony of a two-story house, the barrel of his rifle poked into a hole cut in the wood, an Army sniper calls for quiet before taking his shot.

“Firing,” he says evenly, before the .50 caliber shot rings out, sending tremors through the house. He was firing at a home less than a kilometer away, believed to be a stronghold of Islamist Maute group of militants who have been holed up in Marawi City for over five weeks.

A spotter sat next to him, with his scope set into another hole. The two spoke quietly to each other as the sniper took three more shots across the Agus River into the militant-held commercial district of Marawi, now a battleground strewn with debris from ruined buildings.

Scores of bodies are rotting in the area, and the stench mixes with the smell of gunpowder.

Thousands of soldiers are battling to retake Marawi, where gunmen of the Maute group loyal to Islamic State (IS) launched a lightning strike on May 23.

Southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen and Chechnya fighting alongside local militants had raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for IS as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.

As troops poured in to contain the siege, few were expecting a slow, difficult and unfamiliar urban war.

“We are used to insurgencies... but a deployment of this magnitude, this kind of conflict is a challenge for our troops,” said Lt Col Christopher Tampus, one of the officers commanding ground operations in Marawi.

He said progress in clearing the city has been hindered by militant fire and booby traps like gas tanks rigged with grenades.

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News Story: Rody expected to discuss security issue with Widodo

By Alexis Romero

MANILA, Philippines -  President Duterte was expected to discuss security issues with Indonesia President Joko Widodo yesterday as fighting between government troops and militants in Marawi City dragged on to its fifth week.

Duterte told reporters in Cagayan de Oro he would ask Widodo about the Indonesian fighters who fought alongside the Maute group, a band of terrorists aligned with the extremist Middle East-based Islamic State (IS).

“I think most of the foreign fighters were Indonesians,” he added. Duterte’s spokesman Ernesto Abella could not elaborate on the discussion between the two leaders.

“I’m sure they’ll be talking security matters, but we don’t have the details of the plans for that conversation,” Abella said in a press briefing yesterday.

Duterte earlier said he was disappointed that Maranaos allowed IS fighters to enter Marawi City to introduce their extremist ideology.

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News Story: ISIS threat in Southeast Asia alarms Washington

By Matthew Pennington

WASHINGTON – Southeast Asia’s jihadis who fought by the hundreds for the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria now have a different battle closer to home in the southern Philippines. It’s a scenario raising significant alarm in Washington.

The recent assault by IS-aligned fighters on Marawi has left more than 300 people dead, exposing the shortcomings of local security forces and the extremist group’s spreading reach in a region where counterterrorism gains are coming undone.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress last week a long-running US military operation to help Philippine forces contain extremist fighters was canceled prematurely three years ago. Small numbers of US special forces remain in an “advise and assist” role, and the US is providing aerial surveillance to help the Philippines retake Marawi, an inland city of more than 200,000 people.

But lawmakers, including from President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, want a bigger US role, short of boots on the ground. They fear the area is becoming a new hub for Islamist fighters from Southeast Asia and beyond.

“I don’t know that ISIS are directing operations there but they are certainly trying to get fighters into that region,” said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, using another acronym for the group. “We need to address the situation. It should not get out of control.”

US intelligence and counterterrorism officials note that IS has publicly accepted pledges from various groups in the Philippines. In a June 2016 video, it called on followers in Southeast Asia to go to the Philippines if they cannot reach Syria.

About 40 foreigners, mostly from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, have been among 500 involved in fighting in Marawi, the Philippine military says. Reports indicate at least one Saudi, a Chechen and a Yemeni killed. In all, more than 200 militants have died in the standoff, now in its fourth week.

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News Story: AFP - Video shows militants' intention of establishing Islamic state in Marawi

By Jim Gomez and Todd Pitman

MANILA, Philippines — It was an audacious plot sketched out in chilling detail with blue pens on the back of a paper calendar: Islamic militants in the Philippines, including one of the world's most-wanted militant leaders, would take over a key Mindanao city in their boldest attack to date.

With unsettling calm, they spoke of taking hostages from a school, sealing off roads and capturing a highway "so the people will get scared."

Video footage and a separate screen-grab image of that secret meeting, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, offer a rare glimpse into the clandestine operations of insurgents who followed through two weeks ago with an unprecedented assault on the lakeside city of Marawi, parts of which they still occupy today.

The images also provide the first visual proof that a nascent alliance of local Muslim fighters are not only aligned with the Islamic State group, but coordinating and executing complex attacks together. Among those at the table was the purported leader of the Islamic State's Southeast Asia branch, Isnilon Hapilon, who is on Washington's list of most-wanted terrorists and has a $5 million bounty on his head.

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News Story: AFP verifying 1,200 IS agents in Philippines

By Alexis Romero

MANILA, Philippines - The disclosure of Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu that there are about 1,200 foreign Islamic State (IS) members operating in the Philippines caught the military by surprise.

Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said they are still verifying the information as Malacañang affirmed the need to work with Asian neighbors to combat security threats.

“The revelations of the Indonesian defense minister are something that came as a surprise to us because, as was mentioned by senior defense officials, in truth, we don’t have those numbers,” Padilla told a press conference yesterday at Malacañang.

He said the Philippine military would ask Indonesia about the source of the information.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella refused to comment on the specific number, but stressed the need to work with neighboring countries in flushing terrorists out of the country.

“But it is clear that the violence in Marawi is being waged by both Philippine and international criminals, and the southern part of Mindanao has long been used as a refuge by fugitives from Indonesia, Malaysia and other locations,” Abella said.

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News Story: Indonesia - 1,200 IS operatives in Philippines & 1,200 ISIS operatives in Philippines? Gov't mum

Indonesia: 1,200 IS operatives in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines -  There are about 1,200 Islamic State (IS) group operatives in the Philippines, including foreigners of whom 40 are from Indonesia, the Indonesian defense minister told an international security forum yesterday.

Speaking in Singapore amid a bloody standoff between soldiers and the Maute militants fighting under the IS flag in Marawi City, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu called the militants “killing machines” and urged full-scale regional cooperation against them.

“I was advised last night, 1,200 IS in the Philippines, around 40 from Indonesia,” Ryacudu told the Shangri-La Dialogue.

The threat of heightened terrorism, including the impending return of hundreds of Southeast Asian fighters who fought with IS in Syria and Iraq, has been a hot-button issue at the three-day Singapore summit also attended by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Hundreds of Maute fighters rampaged through Marawi City on May 23 after government forces attempted to arrest their leader, Isnilon Hapilon.

Read the full story at PhilStar

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1,200 ISIS operatives in Philippines? Gov't mum

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines — The revelation of Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu that there are about 1,200 Islamic State operatives in the Philippines came as a surprise to the military.

At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the Indonesian defense minister said that around 40 fighters from Indonesia are in the Philippines as part of the international terrorist group.

Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said that the military does not have information on the numbers of foreign fighters in Marawi City.

"The revelations of the Indonesian defense minister is something that came as a surprise to us because as was mentioned by senior defense officials, in truth we don't have those numbers. I'll leave it at that for the moment," Padilla said at a televised press briefing.

Malacañang also refused to comment on the specific numbers of alleged ISIS fighters in the country.

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News Story: Military still fighting strong Maute force – DND chief

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)

By Jaime Laude

MANILA, Philippines - Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana disclosed yesterday that about 200 to 250 Maute and Islamic State (IS) rebels continue to fight government troops in Marawi City.

With this development, Lorenzana, despite declaring in the initial stages of the fighting that the conflict would be over in five days, is no longer giving a deadline for when the conflict would be resolved. 

However, he assured the people that everything is being done to end the fighting and to stabilize the situation in Marawi as soon as possible after the Maute group attacked the city last May 23.

“We talked about an estimated 100 to 200 in the initial stage of the conflict, then we revised that to a higher number because when we were able to kill more than 100 of them, the Maute is still strong,” the defense chief said in a telecast press briefing during his visit to the troops in Marawi City yesterday.

He said the focus of the current military offensive is Barangay Banggolo that has been surrounded by government forces.

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News Story: Revising estimates, DND says 500 militants involved in Marawi

MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said there were 500 extremist fighters who were involved in the attempted siege of Marawi City, effectively revising the government's initial estimate of 100 extremists.

Lorenzana said at a news conference on Thursday that Islamic State sympathizers from militant groups Maute and Abu Sayyaf were augmented by other armed groups to carry out a "big plan" to take over the capital of Lanao del Sur province.

He said about 260 Maute fighters were joined by 100 of Abu Sayyaf subleader Isnilon Hapilon's own men from Basilan, while the rest came from various local militant organizations, Lorenzana said.

The military, meanwhile, reported 120 militants neutralized in the conflict.

The defense chief estimates that there are about 50 to 100 fighters still holed up in Marawi after state forces reported success in retaking about 90 percent of the areas.

"I'm just guessing, you know? Because a small force cannot hold that long, so there are still around 100 (militants in Marawi)," Lorenzana said.

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