Posted on 09/02/2017 7:18:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Southeast Asian militants fighting under the banner of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, are likely to return to the Philippines to regroup, security analysts and officials said.
Speaking at a conference Tuesday in Singapore, defense experts and officials discussed the possibility of ISIS veterans returning to the Philippines, especially the nation's restive southern islands, to receive training and weapons. The global jihadist organization has drawn thousands of fighters from across the world to fight for its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria and received support from foreign Islamist militant groups such as the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf, which pledged its allegiance to ISIS in 2014. An ongoing Islamist insurgency and ISIS' regional outreach could prove fertile ground for ISIS' next big move, according to Singaporean counter-terrorism analyst Rohan Gunaratna.
"Currently, IS is moving towards creating a territory in the southern Philippines. The most recent communication issued by IS has announced that they have formally declared an East Asia division of IS in the southern Philippines," Gunaratna said at the conference, using an alternative acronym for ISIS, according to the Agence France-Presse.
"Our forecast for 2017 is that the threat in this region will grow because of the creation of an IS nucleus in the southern Philippines," he added.
Also in attendance was Singapore's Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, who said the southern majority-Muslim region of Mindanao was "becoming an area that is difficult to control despite the best efforts of the Philippine government." The region could serve as a "sanctuary for returning fighters from the Middle East," he warned.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte vowed last month to escalate the offensive against ISIS-linked groups after a 70-year-old German hostage was beheaded by Abu Sayyaf.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Deuterte is the last person I would want to mess with if I were a terrorist.
President Duterte can’t even stand Filipino drug dealers...what do those ISIS morons think he is going to do to THEM??? ;)
These terrorist can run, but they’ll just die tired.
So are they going to row a boat?
Whatever state or states which sponsor them will arrange transportation, maybe.
“Give me salt and vinegar and I’ll eat his liver.”
- Rodrigo Duterte, about terrorists
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.