It's August in the Philippines and that means the year is almost over. This is the so-called lean month which transitions into the -ber months and the holiday season. What better time to reflect on the status of the Philippines' war on terrorism than now as we rush toward the end of the year? If you are a news junkie or you follow this blog then perhaps you think you are up to date on what is happening. But let's take a closer look at what some analysts are saying about the situation in the Philippines.
The National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) predicts there will be more suicide bombings.
"Almost every six months we had one incident. We pray that none will follow but we are sure that there will be," NICA Director-General Alex Paul Monteagudo told GMA News.
"The terrorists are training and recruiting children as young as 10, 12 years old," he added.
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said that there are vulnerable sectors that must be carefully guarded so that they would not be recruited by terrorists.
These include students attending madrasah or Islamic schools, religious leaders, overseas Filipino workers, prisoners, and even netizens.
In this same video Sen. Lacson says:
"I hope we won't experience another suicide bombing before we wake up to the reality that we really need a strong anti-terrorism law."
The DND hopes to strengthen the current anti-terroism law by allowing suspected terrorists to be held for up to 60 days.
The proposal of granting powers to law enforcers to hold a terror suspect for a period of 14 days sans formal complaints is also being discussed in the Senate to add more teeth to the Human Security Act of 2007.
Under existing laws, a terror suspect may only be held in custody for 36 hours if there are no formal charges filed against him or her.
The Department of National Defense proposed to extend it up to 60 days.
"Sixty days, that's quick. Two months lang po 'yun Mr. Chairman just to give them time, more time to develop their case," Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.
The NICA seconded the proposal.
"If you let them loose, they are going to infect the rest of the society, they are going to radicalize children. And therefore we need laws that will allow us to hold them longer," Monteagudo said.
Madrassas are the standard indoctrination schools for Islamic terrorists so it very well could be that young Filipino children are being recruited to join the folds of ISIS. The goal is to eradicate ISIS and all their affiliates here in the Philippines but just how that will happen as a result of being able to hold a suspect for 60 days the DND does not say.
Lacson's statement about waking up to reality regarding this new problem of Filipino suicide bombers is fraught with irony. Have the AFP and DND really been asleep this whole time? Yes they have. They have ignored what experts have been saying for years and what ISIS has been telling them directly.
“Ansar al-Khilafah (Supporters of the Caliphate) in the Philippines”, a group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in August 2014, released a video threatening to deploy suicide bombers in the Philippines and make the country a “graveyard” for American soldiers.
August 2014, five years ago, is when we hear the first threat of suicide bombers being deployed in the Philippines. Two years later in 2016 ISIS finally recognised the pledges of several Philippine groups.
ISIS or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as IS, ISIL, or its loose Arabic acronym, Da’esch, is set to exploit homegrown conflicts in Southeast Asia, with risks of a mass casualty attack growing significantly higher in the Philippines, according to counter-terrorism and security officials from 4 different countries interviewed by Rappler.
In a 7-minute video released on January 4 and announced last week in Arabic on ISIS’ official newsletter, Al-Naba, Filipinos and Malaysians united 4 “battalions” in the Philippines, and their leaders pledged allegiance to ISIS’ self-appointed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, formed a shura or leadership council, and named Abu Sayyaf ideologue Isnilon Hapilon their leader.
"The next step ISIS is likely to take is the proclamation of wilayatMindanao," terror expert Rohan Gunaratna told Rappler over the weekend.
The military has not only dismissed our report on this. It also declared, through its public affairs chief Colonel Noel Detoyato, that "there is no ISIS here."
Detoyato said: “There is a difference between ISIS-directed and ISIS-inspired.”
No ISIS here.
That mantra was repeated time and again by the AFP until the Marawi siege and even then they kept insisting ISIS was not behind the attack until they had to admit they were wrong. One would think the AFP would constantly be on their toes and believe just about every rumour that comes their way until disproved otherwise since the discovery in 1994 of the Bojinka Plot which was being hatched right under everyone's nose in Manila.
The Bojinka plot (Arabic: بوجينكا; Tagalog: Oplan Bojinka) was a large-scale, three-phase attack planned by terrorists Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II, blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world, and crash a plane into the headquarters of the CIA in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Despite careful planning, the Bojinka plot was disrupted after a chemical fire drew the attention of the Philippine National Police – Western Police District (PNP-WPD) on January 6–7, 1995. Yousef and Mohammed were unable to stage any of the three attacks. The only fatality resulted from a test bomb planted by Yousef on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 which killed one person and injured 10 others. They also planted two other bombs in a shopping mall and theater in Southern Philippines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot
This plot was financed by Al-Qaeda which included front groups posing as charities, such as the International Islamic Relief Agency, run by Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.
Funding for the Bojinka Plot came from Osama bin Laden and Hambali, and from front organizations operated by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden's brother-in-law.
Wali Khan Amin Shah, an Afghan, was the financier of the plot. He funded the plot by laundering money through his girlfriend and other Manila women, several of whom were bar hostesses and one of whom was an employee at a KFC restaurant. They were bribed with gifts and holiday trips so that they would open bank accounts to stash funds.
The transfers were small, equivalent to about 12,000 to 24,000 Philippine pesos ($500 to $1,000 US), and would be handed over each night at a Wendy's or a karaoke bar. The funds went to "Adam Sali", an alias used by Ramzi Yousef. The money came through a Filipino bank account owned by Jordanian Omar Abu Omar, who worked at International Relations and Information Centre, an Islamic organization run by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.
A company called Konsojaya also provided financial assistance to the Manila cell by laundering money to it. Konsojaya was a front company that was started by the head of the group Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian named Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali. Wali Khan Amin Shah was on the board of directors of the company.
The organisations run by Khalifa served to finance Abu Sayyaf and other terrorist groups in Mindanao most notably the MILF who now run the BARMM. What a tangled web that all is which shows just how foolish the Philippine government is to have entered into any deal with the MILF as that contained in the BBL.
Will the AFP and the politicians running this country ever wake up? If they aren't still asleep they at least are underestimating the enemy. But they are not alone in their inability to fully grasp the depth of the situation in the Philippines. The Americans are also guilty.
This week the US DoD released their 7th quarterly report of Operation Pacific Eagle. It covers he months April 1 - June 1. Here is the brief overview.
On June 28, 2019, a suicide bombing killed at least 5 and wounded 22 at an Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) camp on the island of Jolo. This was the first confirmed suicide bombing by a Philippine national. While the Philippines has struggled with violent extremism for decades, suicide attacks were extremely rare, and U.S. and Philippine officials operated under the assumption that the Filipino people are culturally averse to suicide attacks. Since Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines (OPE-P) began in 2017, the small number of suicide bombings were all carried out by foreign fighters. An AFP spokesperson stated that security forces will need to adapt to this apparent change in enemy tactics.
pg. 2
In response to the bombing, an AFP spokesperson told reporters, “The most significant implication now that we have a Filipino suicide bomber...is that this should open a new mindset that we have a different security environment.” While U.S. and Philippine officials have previously operated under the assumption that the Filipino people are culturally disinclined to conduct suicide attacks, an Indonesia-based terrorism analyst cautioned the authorities not to take this for granted, stating, “This isn’t about culture, it’s about indoctrination, and no one is culturally ‘immune.’”
In responses made to the DoD OIG before this attack took place, USINDOPACOM stated that ISIS-EA was “not shifting tactics to place greater emphasis on suicide attacks,” that “Filipinos are not culturally or ideologically inclined to conduct suicide attacks,” and that future suicide bombings in the Philippines would likely incorporate foreign fighters from outside Southeast Asia. In previous quarters, USINDOPACOM stated to the DoD OIG that an absence of indigenous suicide bombings was one indicator that Philippine jihadist groups had co-opted the aesthetics and reputation of ISIS without fully incorporating its ideology. According to Philippine officials, this quarter’s suicide bombing in Indanan was evidence that Philippine jihadists have not universally rejected the extremist ideology of ISIS.
pg. 8
It is 2019 and since the establishment of ISIS in the country in 2014 the Philippines has seen the destruction of a major city by ISIS affiliated groups and experts around the world keep telling us this is the new land of jihad. How insane is it then that USINDOPACOM (that means US Indo-Pacific Command) would spout nonsense about Philippine jihadist groups only co-opting the aesthetics of ISIS and not their ideology? Clearly they adopted their ideology years ago. Suicide bombings were only a matter of time. Why use cultural stereotypes as a basis for measuring what Filipino jihadists are and aren't inclined to do? Why not look at the broader picture which is that ISIS preaches an ideology which transcends culture. Why else would foreign fighters be making their way to he Philippines?
The relationship between ISIS-EA and ISIS-Core is a major factor USINDOPACOM uses to assess the relative strength of the Philippine affiliates. USINDOPACOM stated that it was not aware of any financial or other support from ISIS-Core to ISIS-EA this quarter and reported no change in the dynamics between the two groups since last quarter. Additionally, USINDOPACOM reported no changes in ISIS-EA’s command and control structure or the group’s operational capabilities, including its ability to build explosive devices.
USINDOPACOM reported to the DoD OIG that despite several high-profile terrorist attacks, ISIS-EA was incapable of conducting large-scale attacks and would likely remain limited in this capacity for the near future. USINDOPACOM has defined “large-scale” attacks as having a casualty toll of more than 100 and cited the 2002 Bali, Indonesia, bombings as an example. USINDOPACOM stated that a lack of unified leadership, funding, cohesion between factions, and support from ISIS-Core would prevent ISIS-EA from carrying out large-scale attacks.
According to USINDOPACOM, ISIS-EA did not gain or lose any territory this quarter and continued to operate in the same regions of the southern Philippines, specifically the island of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. In response to a question from the DoD OIG about the strength of the various ISIS-EA factions, USINDOPACOM cited figures from an AFP assessment that put the total strength of ISIS-EA at 574 fighters, including 424 members of the ASG; 85 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters-Esmael faction; 59 members of the Maute Group; and 6 members of the Ansar Khalifa Philippines faction.
These numbers suggest that the ASG’s relative strength within ISIS-EA has grown over the last year. During the same quarter in 2018, USINDOPACOM estimated that there were approximately 200 ISIS-affiliated fighters in the Philippines, split roughly evenly among ASG, the Maute Group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, and Ansar Khalifa Philippines.
pg. 9 - 10
An increase of 374 fighters is not much. Not when you include all those who have died the previous year in clashes with the AFP. However the fact that there was any growth should be a cause of concern that all is not as it seems. Especially when the NICA is telling the Senate that terrorists are recruiting young children and more suicide bombers can be expected in the future. USINDOPACOM probably ought not to be so confident ISIS-EA (that is their code for ISIS East Asia but refers primarily to the Philippines) is incapable of conducting large-scale attacks.
Another recent analysis by the Institute for the Study of War tells us that ISIS is on its way back from the dead in Syria and Iraq and looking to establish Caliphate 2.0. This is contrary to the claims of the US DoD that ISIS is dead or dying. From the overview we read the following.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) is not defeated despite the loss of the territory it claimed as its so-called ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria. It is stronger today than its predecessor Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was in 2011, when the U.S. withdrew from Iraq. AQI had around 700-1000 fighters then. ISIS had as many as 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria in August 2018 according to a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate. ISIS built from the small remnant left in 2011 an army large enough to recapture Fallujah, Mosul, and other cities in Iraq and dominate much of eastern Syria in only three years. It will recover much faster and to a much more dangerous level from the far larger force it still has today.
The slow-motion reduction of ISIS’s territory and strength initiated by President Obama and continued by President Trump gave the group plenty of time to plan and prepare for the next phase of the war. It had a plan to recover ready before the “caliphate” fell and has been executing it during the anti-ISIS campaign conducted by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and the U.S.-Led Anti-ISIS Coalition. ISIS deliberately withdrew and relocated many of its fighters and their families from Mosul, Raqqa, and other important cities into new and old support zones in Iraq and Syria. ISIS’s forces are now dispersed across both countries and are waging a capable insurgency. ISIS retained a global finance network that funded its transition back to an insurgency and managed to preserve sufficient weapons and other supplies in tunnel systems and other support zones in order to equip its regenerated insurgent force.
ISIS’s insurgency will grow because areas it has lost in Iraq and Syria are still neither stable nor secure. In Iraq, ISIS has systematically eliminated village leaders and civilians who cooperated with anti-ISIS forces. Its goal is to weaken resistance and to fuel the population’s distrust of the Government of Iraq. It has re-imposed taxes on local populations in its historical support zones, displacing civilians and de facto controlling small pockets of terrain in Iraq.
ISIS's Second Comeback, Executive Summary pg. 8
"ISIS retained a global finance network." Does that mean ISIS affiliated groups in the Philippines can hope to see funds flowing in soon? With Marawi still in ruins and the AFP seeking for another yearlong extension of martial law in 2020 Mindanao also remains neither stable nor secure which could contribute to any growth of ISIS in the Philippines. What a resurgence of ISIS in the Middle East means for the Philippines is not made clear in this report. In fact except for a brief history of the organisation the Philippines is hardly mentioned at all. There is an interesting blurb about the Marawi siege on page 16.
In the Philippines in 2017, ISIS repeated its tactic of destroying cities. It defended Marawi for five months with tactics similar to those it used in urban battles in Iraq and Syria, including extensive use of snipers and IEDs that drew heavy artillery fire and airstrikes on the Armed Forces of the Philippines. ISIS covered the battle extensively in its social propaganda, including the front pages of Rumiyah. The battle damaged over 95 percent of the buildings in central Marawi, while the destruction further alienated minority Sunnis from the Philippine government, which declared much of the city a military reservation a er the battle.79
pg. 16
ISIS affiliated groups in the Philippines have adopted ISIS tactics used elsewhere and used them during the Marawi siege. This should not be surprising as these groups have pledged loyalty to ISIS and that would naturally mean they would begin employing their tactics which would eventually include even suicide bombers. But this fact seems to have caught the AFP and even the US DoD off guard and now they are "reassessing previous assumptions."
The gist of all this is that ISIS is here to stay for the immediate future. Despite the AFP telling the public they will destroy Abu Sayyaf by year's end we learn that the NICA predicts more suicide bombings and the US DoD reveals that the number of Abu Sayyf fighters has increased. The nature of this enemy is incredibly hard to pin down and any celebration of victory is going to be by necessity premature.
April 2019
“I am especially pleased with our military's recent accomplishments against the Abu Sayyaf Group. Your efforts have brought us even closer to our ultimate objective of totally crushing violent extremism at its roots,” Duterte said in his speech.
“With this, I can confidently declare that ISIS will never gain foothold anywhere in the Philippines,” he added.
August 2019
“Just like Iraq, Syria, na maraming inosenteng tao ang nadadali [where many innocent people are affected],” Duterte said during the oathtaking of newly-appointed officials in Malacañang.
The President said he hopes the Philippines will be spared from a possible ISIS attack.
“I’m praying - I really pray, talagang lumuluhod ako sa Diyos [I am kneeling before God] to spare us that kind of brutality and cruelty in our country - because it will really be bloody,” he added.
Again and again the politicians and security forces of the Philippines continue to make the biggest mistake in dealing with ISIS which is underestimating them. There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.
