[Express] After ISIS lost Raqqa to Kurdish and Sunni Arab forces in October last year, there have been many indications that ISIS, or ISIS-inspired entities, are looking to renew their insurgency in the Philippines. As ISIS is driven out of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, foreign fighters have been arriving in the Philippines with the aim of attacking Filipino towns and recruiting fighters.Philippines military officials warned that ISIS had put together a small force of around 200 fighters in Mindanao, with the intent of establishing a new caliphate in February. The island could then be used as a launch pad for further attacks in the country.
The U.S. has reportedly spent over $1 billion in assistance to the Philippines over the past eight years, with $85 million being spent on counterterrorism related equipment, training and support.
There are now reportedly 23 armed groups in the Philippines operating under the banner of “ISIS Philippines”. The U.S. State Department has also recently added ISIS Philippines and six other Islamist terror groups to their list of designated terrorists.
It is understood that former US president Barack Obama’s drone-bombing campaign in the Philippines was widely regarded as one of the most effective recruitment tools for groups like ISIS.On March 10, the US gifted the Philippine military new drones, the Boeing Insitu ScanEagle UAVs, transferred through a US grant of over $13 million, signalling the continuation of a defence cooperation underway in the US-Philippine alliance. This occurred around the same time President Duterte announced that he would not allow Filipino troops to be dragged into more U.S.-led wars unless the country were to face a direct threat.
Around the same time, Duterte stated that the Philippines had not received anything from the U.S. other than “brutality and agony” after “all these years of sacrifice”.
| When you put it that way... |