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| Southeast Asia |
| Eight IS Supporters Killed in Philippine Clash |
| 2015-11-28 |
| [AnNahar] Eight members of a criminal gang that pledged allegiance to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... jihadists were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines, officials said Friday. The hour-long battle took place on Thursday in Palimbang, a remote town in the south -- home to the predominantly Catholic nation's Muslim minority and the scene of decades of conflict. The bandidos were from Ansar al-Khalifa, a small group that declared its support for Islamic State in a video circulated on the Internet last year, regional military front man Major Filemon Tan said. The military has said that support for Islamic State -- which controls vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq -- in the Philippines was limited to local bandidos claiming allegiance to the group. But it has said there is no evidence showing that such gangs were receiving support from the jihadists. The larger Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... group, a United States-listed terrorist organization that is holding at least four foreign nationals hostage and has demanded millions of dollars in ransom, has likewise pledged allegiance to IS. Tan told Agence La Belle France Presse that five black flags similar to those used by Islamic State fighters were recovered from the bandidos after the clash. Criminal gangs operate kidnap for ransom and extortion activities alongside Muslim and communist separatist campaigns in the restive south. While the relatively new Ansar al-Khalifa had extorted from businessmen and stolen cattle from farmers, it had no proven links with Islamic State -- also known by the acronym ISIS -- national military front man Colonel Restituto Padilla said. "This group is trying to ride on the popularity of the ISIS, but they're not really ISIS," he told AFP. "We view them as mere criminal gangs." Tan said the military was verifying intelligence reports that one of the eight killed was an Indonesian national. Some three dozen others who involved in the encounter escaped after the fighting, he added. |
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