ISIS Recruits Fighters for the Philippines Instead of Syria

A video released by ISIS asks would-be fighters to go to the Philippines instead of Syria and Iraq, the latest sign that the terror group is shifting its recruiting tactics as it loses ground to coalition forces in the Middle East.

The seven-minute, English-language video, released by the official ISIS media operation late last month, includes messages from several fighters in the Southern Philippines, and scenes from battles with government troops near the city of Marawi, including the pillaging of a Catholic church.

One of the fighters calls on Muslims in “East Asia, specifically those in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, and Singapore” to migrate and fight alongside the ISIS-linked militants in the Philippines.

A militant identified as “Abul-Yamaan from Marawi” proclaims: “Come forth to the land of jihad. Perform hijrah. Come forth to … Marawi.” – READ MORE </s> A video released by ISIS asks would-be fighters to go to the Philippines instead of Syria and Iraq, the latest sign that the terror group is shifting its recruiting tactics as it loses ground to coalition forces in the Middle East.

The seven-minute, English-language video, released by the official ISIS media operation late last month, includes messages from several fighters in the Southern Philippines, and scenes from battles with government troops near the city of Marawi, including the pillaging of a Catholic church.

One of the fighters calls on Muslims in "East Asia, specifically those in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, and Singapore" to migrate and fight alongside the ISIS-linked militants in the Philippines.

A militant identified as "Abul-Yamaan from Marawi" proclaims: "Come forth to the land of jihad. Perform hijrah. Come forth to … Marawi."

U.S. intelligence officials and private sector analysts like Flashpoint Intelligence, which NBC News uses to track terrorist groups, say that Asia has become a new focus for ISIS. The terror group now sees the southern Philippine islands, where a Muslim insurgency has simmered for decades, as the best destination for Islamic militants, and is using videos and social media in both English and languages spoken in the southern Philippines to boast of its exploits and recruit fighters.

"ISIS wants to be seen as global and the Philippines provides them with an opportunity," said a U.S. official.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during an Aug. 1 press conference in Washington that U.S. intelligence is aware ISIS fighters from other countries are operating in Philippines.

"We already see elements of ISIS in the Philippines, as you're aware, gaining a foothold," said Tillerson. "Some of these fighters have gone to the Philippines from Syria and Iraq. We are in conversations with the Philippine government, with Indonesia, with Malaysia, with Singapore, with Australia, as partners to recognize this threat, try to get ahead of this threat."

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official noted that Philippine Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Ano said in June that among the dead in the continuing battle for Marawi were Saudis, Pakistanis, Malaysians and Indonesians. The official said there's no reason to doubt Ano's assessment.

Related: U.S. May Begin Airstrikes Against ISIS in Philippines

There are three major ISIS-aligned Islamist groups on the island of Mindanao — Maute, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and Abu Sayyaf, formerly an al Qaeda offshoot. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon the ISIS emir of Southeast Asia in 2016.

The allied pro-ISIS groups began battling government forces in Marawi, a city of 200,000, in May, and clashes continue as government soldiers try to evict the militants from the city. More than 60 Philippine soldiers have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the fighting.

The ISIS call for jihadis to travel east to the Philippines, however, comes at a time when the U.S. is rethinking whether a significant number of ISIS fighters will relocate from the caliphate, as originally believed.

Nick Rasmussen, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, said last month that U.S. intelligence has not yet seen a large flow.

"At one point, we were worried about this out-rush, outflows, massive outflows of foreign fighters once the battlefield situation changed in Iraq and Syria and that Western countries, countries in the region, would be flooded with returnees," Rasmussen said, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum. "I think now speaking kind of broadly, that's less likely than we first assessed."

U.S. intelligence officials say that instead, most fighters will likely stay in Iraq and Syria and continue to fight as insurgents. Moreover, they say, there are fewer of them, many having been killed in action.

The ISIS affiliates in Mindanao, meanwhile, also face another challenge — their former comrades.

The largest indigenous Islamist force, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which had battled government forces on the island since the 1960s, reached a ceasefire deal with the government in 2014. Other groups, including BIFF, rejected the deal, and MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front found themselves fighting BIFF, Maute, Abu Sayyaf and several other splinter groups.

MILF launched an offensive against BIFF three weeks ago in a region south of Marawi.

Since 2001, the U.S. has provided military aid, mostly special operations training, to the Philippines to fight terrorism. This summer Philippine forces used U.S.-supplied gunships to attack the Islamist groups. In 2012, the U.S. launched its own airstrikes against Islamist targets in the country. As NBC News reported in August, the U.S. has recently weighed carrying out fresh airstrikes against ISIS in the Philippines. </s> Chief of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a propaganda video, asserted that the battle for Baghouz, ISIL's final bastion in eastern Syria, "is over."

Al Jazeera cited the video, published by ISIL's Al Furqan media network on Monday, in which the ISIL leader seemed to have grown a bushy grey beard. He kept an assault weapon close by and sat in a cross-legged position on a cushion along with three men by his side whose faces were blurred.

"There will be more to come after this battle," said al-Baghdadi, apparently referring to the final fight in Baghouz.

Al-Baghdadi had appeared for the first time in the propaganda video since delivering a sermon at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014, declaring a "Caliphate" in Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, an audio message was also put out, purportedly of al-Baghdadi, saying that the April 21 attacks in Sri Lanka, which left at least 253 people dead, was "vengeance" for ISIL's "brothers in Baghouz".

"Your brothers in Sri Lanka have healed the hearts of monotheists [ISIL members] with their suicide bombings, which shook the beds of the crusaders during Easter to avenge your brothers in Baghouz," al-Baghdadi was reportedly heard saying.

"Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday," he mentioned in the video.

The leader further insisted that ISIL's operations against the West were part of a "long battle" and the group would "take revenge" for its members who had been killed.

Wearing a black robe with a beige vest, al-Baghdadi gave an 18-minute address in the video. However, it is unclear when the footage was filmed.

Baghouz, the last piece of populated land held by the ISIL, which once spread across a third of Iraq and Syria, is roughly equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom and attracted 40,000 fighters to its cause.

At its peak, the terror outfit controlled huge parts of Iraq and Syria with a population of over 10 million people. However, since 2017, the terror group started losing hold on major territories in both countries to the United States-backed military forces.

Last month, US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had resumed attack against Baghouz with an objective to clear out the last traces of its self-declared 'Caliphate'. </s> Manila, Philippines - Back-to-back explosions at a Roman Catholic cathedral followed by a grenade attack on a mosque last week have swiftly ended the honeymoon for Filipinos celebrating the ratification of the Bangsamoro, a political agreement designed to end decades of violence in the southern Philippines by strengthening self-rule for the country's Muslim minorities.

The referendum that confirmed the Bangsamoro took place on January 21.

Six days later, the two bomb blasts at the church in Jolo town in Sulu province killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 100 others attending a Sunday service. Three days later, a grenade was thrown on a mosque in Zamboanga city in the middle of the night, killing two people and wounding four.

Sulu and Zamboanga are in the volatile and poverty-ridden Mindanao region in the southern Philippines, where Muslim rebels have been battling the government since the 1970s.

At least 120,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

The national government in Manila denied the attacks had anything to do with the referendum or its result.

But the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which negotiated for the Bangsamoro and is expected to lay down its weapons to govern the area, says the incidents are a challenge to the peace agreement.

The Jolo bombing was "nothing but a cowardly and evil attempt to extinguish the hope for peace that we have in the newly ratified Bangsamoro Organic Law", the group said in a statement.

"The forces of extremism, wherever they may be coming from, are bent to keep us in the cycle of violence, distrust and hatred that we want to put an end to," it added.

Philippine authorities, although they initially downplayed a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, suspect the Jolo cathedral attack was the work of an ISIL-linked faction of the Abu Sayyaf armed group.

The Abu Sayyaf, based in Sulu province, is a relatively small organisation notorious for bombings, beheadings and kidnap-for-ransom operations in the southern Philippines and the seas around Malaysia's Sabah state.

Like the MILF, the Abu Sayyaf is a splinter group from the original Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the first to rebel and fight the government for an independent state in Mindanao.

But unlike the MILF and the MNLF, the Abu Sayyaf rejects autonomy.

It has also outdone both groups in terms of brutality, which is why the Abu Sayyaf is now widely regarded as mere bandits and pirates - rebels without a cause.

"You have the usual suspects, which is of course the Abu Sayyaf," security analyst Jose Antonio Custodio told Al Jazeera. "But sometimes these groups do it upon the bidding of other groups that prefer to operate in the shadows."

Aside from rebel groups, as in most parts of the Philippines, several political dynasties wield power in Mindanao. Some of these wealthy and influential clans are known to employ private armies or, in some cases, existing armed groups.

Among the provinces comprising an already existing autonomous region, Sulu is the only one where votes against the Bangsamoro exceeded those for it. Elsewhere in Mindanao, the "yes" vote won by a landslide.

However, the ratified law does not allow Sulu or any of the existing autonomous provinces to exclude themselves from the Bangsamoro; only those outside can opt in.

Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan II has formally opposed the Bangsamoro, filing a case at the Supreme Court in October and insisting the autonomy law must include an option for exclusion.

Tan has also questioned the Bangsamoro's form of government, arguing that the country's constitution prohibits regional parliaments.

The planned Bangsamoro parliament will distribute power among political parties, district representatives and sectoral groups to diminish the power of the political clans whose feudal-style rule has left the region desperately poor.

Whichever groups were responsible for the attacks, the government has decided it's the Abu Sayyaf they will pursue and punish.

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to wage an "all-out war" to "crush" the group.

Government forces have already resumed air attacks on suspected Abu Sayyaf hideouts in Sulu; the military's preferred strategy when ground combat is hampered by the difficult and remote terrain.

Delfin Lorenzana, Duterte's defence secretary, said it was difficult to fight the Abu Sayyaf because people in Sulu, whether out of fear or because they support them, were unlikely to reveal the fighters' whereabouts.

Some local officials even protect the Abu Sayyaf, Lorenzana added.

A fresh wave of violence, it seems, is heaping more pressure on the Bangsamoro even before it has begun. </s> MANILA (Reuters) - A bombing wounded 33 people during an amateur boxing match in a central Philippines province, the government said on Thursday, the second attack on a public place by unknown perpetrators in less than a week.

An 81-millimetre mortar round was detonated remotely by cellphone during the amateur bout outside a shopping mall in Leyte province late on Wednesday. Police said no suspects had been identified and no group had claimed responsibility.

It followed a Christmas Eve grenade explosion outside a Catholic church that wounded 16 people on the southern island of Mindanao, a Muslim-dominated region where a long-running insurgency is being fought.

Police said there was no indication the two attacks were linked.

President Rodrigo Duterte has warned of the threat of a proliferation of festering Islamist militancy in the Philippines and an infiltration by the Islamic State militant group if offensives to drive its fighters out of Iraq and Syria succeed.

Duterte has warned of vulnerability in the southern Philippines, where some splinter groups have pledged allegiance to Islamic State and only a small stretch of sea separates predominantly Muslim areas of the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. </s> MANILA (BLOOMBERG) - Philippines soldiers were involved in fresh clashes with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)-inspired militants in the southern island of Mindanao on Saturday (Feb 2), a day after the authorities said two Indonesian suicide bombers were behind the Jan 27 explosions that left 22 people dead in a Catholic church.

Military operations have intensified in a terrorist lair in Maguindanao, part of Mindanao, with bomber planes being used to destroy bunkers that occupy about 20 people, a military spokesman said in a mobile phone message.

In the nearby Sulu province, soldiers encountered about 100 Abu Sayyaf members and a firefight is going on.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said on Friday that two suicide bombers from Indonesia were behind last Sunday's explosions in Sulu that also injured about a hundred people. Members of the Abu Sayyaf acted as a guide in the bombings, Mr Ano told reporters in the central province of Leyte.

CNN Philippines also quoted Mr Ano as saying the Indonesian couple wanted to set an example among Filipino militants, adding there are still some foreign terrorists in the country.

The Philippine military this week launched an airstrike against a splinter group from the Abu Sayyaf that it believed led the attack.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier said a Yemeni couple may have been behind the blast.

The bombings came days after voters endorsed a new autonomous region intended to end decades of violence in the impoverished Muslim-majority area. </s> The attack by Islamic State group-affiliated militants on a Philippine city has galvanized its Southeast Asian supporters and spells trouble for the region, a top terrorism researcher said Friday as the occupation of Marawi nears two months despite a sustained military offensive.

In a new report, Sidney Jones, an expert on militant networks in Southeast Asia at the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said there now may be a higher risk of attacks in other Philippine cities and cooperation between militants across regional borders could expand. Militants in Indonesia and Malaysia will want to redouble efforts to attack police and may also lift their sights to targeting foreigners, she said.

“The initial photographs from Marawi released over social media as the ISIS assault began — smiling fighters hold guns aloft on trucks — seemed to have the same impact as the iconic ISIS victory photos from Mosul in 2014,” Jones said, using another acronym for IS and referring to its past occupation of Iraq’s second-largest city. “They generated a shared sense of triumph and strengthened the desire of ISIS supporters in the region to join the battle.”

Waving IS-style black flags, the heavily armed fighters stormed into Marawi, a center of Islamic faith in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, on May 23, occupying buildings, houses and mosques and taking hostages. Foreign fighters, including 20 Indonesians, joined the insurrection, which officials and researchers say received funding locally and from IS in Syria that was coordinated by a Malaysian known as Mahmud bin Ahmad.

At least 578 people, including at least 428 militants, 105 soldiers and policemen, as well as 45 civilians have been killed in the worst urban uprising by Muslim militants in the volatile southern Philippines in decades. Nearly half a million residents have been displaced in Marawi and outlying towns by the fighting.

On Saturday, the Philippine Congress overwhelmingly approved the President Rodrigo Duterte’s appeal for martial law in the south to be extended to the end of the year to help troops quell the two-month siege by the militants and stamp out similar extremist plots in the volatile region.

House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez announced that senators and House members voted 261-18 in favor of granting Duterte’s request in a special joint session. The 60-day martial law had been scheduled to expire late Saturday.

The military chief of staff, Gen. Eduardo Ano, warned during the session that aside from the uprising in Marawi, extremist groups have plotted similar insurrections in other southern cities and that martial law has helped troops stop attacks, including bombings, elsewhere.

“There was an order for them to do their own version of Marawi in other areas, but we were able to stop this because of martial law,” Ano told the legislators.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana played down concerns of military abuses, saying no major human rights violations have been reported since Duterte declared martial law to deal with the Marawi violence, the worst crisis in his yearlong presidency.

Some opponents argued that government forces could deal with the attack in lakeside Marawi, a center of Islamic faith in the southern third of the largely Roman Catholic nation, without resorting to martial law. Others worried that the extension was too long and that the rest of the country may eventually be placed under martial rule.

Left-wing activists opposed to Duterte’s declaration rallied outside Congress. Some unfurled protest posters in the plenary hall but were forced out by security officers.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros recalled how civil liberties were curtailed and Congress was padlocked when dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in the Philippines in 1972. Marcos was ousted in a “people power” revolt in 1986.

Duterte said Friday the Marawi crisis should be over soon, but that he has asked troops not to launch an all-out assault that might prompt the militants to kill their hostages.

“We’ll just have to wait it out. I told them, ‘do not attack,’ ” Duterte said in a speech at a business conference in the southern Philippine city of Davao. “If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year.”

Military officials have said 300 civilians may be held by the militants or trapped in their homes by the fighting.

Jones said Indonesians and Malaysians who joined the fight in Marawi could return to their countries, and with their high prestige provide new leadership, uniting factionalized pro-IS cells.

But a Malawi-style attack in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is unlikely because unlike the southern Philippines, it does not have the multiple insurgencies that extremists can draw on for fighters and weapons, she said.

The report was based on research in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, interviews with Indonesian militants, credible news reports including from The Associated Press and monitoring of pro-IS groups on the Telegram instant messaging app.

When the militants holding out in Marawi are defeated, the rebuilding of the city, which has pounded by airstrikes, will be crucial for the Philippines and Southeast Asia, according to Jones.

Officials need to give those displaced a voice in the rebuilding of Marawi and prevent extremist teachings from finding fertile ground, she said.

“Recruiters (for militant groups) were able to build on the narrative of state brutality long before the battle for Marawi began, but the military’s reliance on airstrikes … enabled the fighters to blame the government for the city’s destruction,” she said. </s> Malaysians, Indonesian, and possibly Arabs killed after fierce fight for the southern city of Marawi.

The Philippine military chief says three Malaysians, an Indonesian, and possibly Arab fighters have been killed in a southern city that armed groups planned to burn entirely in an audacious plot to project the lethal influence of ISIL.

General Eduardo Ano told The Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday the military has made advances in containing the week-long siege of Marawi city. He said a top Filipino fighters is believed to have been killed and the leader of the attack was wounded.

Ano said the group plotted to set Marawi ablaze and kill as many Christians in nearby Iligan city on Ramadan to mimic the violence seen by the world in Syria and Iraq.

The army insists the drawn-out fight is not a true sign of the group's strength, and the military has held back to spare civilians' lives.

"They are weak," Ano said of the gunmen, speaking at a hospital where wounded soldiers were being treated. "It's just a matter of time for us to clear them from all their hiding places."

As of Tuesday morning, he said the military working house-by-house had cleared 70 percent of the city and the remaining fighters were isolated.

Still, the fighters have turned out to be remarkably well-armed and resilient.

Attack helicopters were streaking low over Marawi on Monday, firing rockets at hideouts, as heavily armed soldiers went house to house.

The gunmen have held the Philippine army at bay, burning buildings, taking at least a dozen hostages and sending tens of thousands of residents fleeing.

Ano said Tuesday that the commander, Isnilon Hapilon, is still hiding somewhere in the city. Authorities were working to confirm that another leader had been killed.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in the south through mid-July after the fighters went on a deadly rampage in Marawi last week following an unsuccessful military raid to capture Hapilon.

In recent years, small armed groups in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have begun unifying under the banner of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Jose Calida, the top Philippine prosecutor, said last week that the violence on the large southern island of Mindanao "is no longer a rebellion of Filipino citizens".

Rohan Gunaratna, a security expert at Singapore's S Rarajatnam School of International Studies, said ISIL and the smaller regional groups are working together to show their strength and declare a Philippine province part of the caliphate that ISIL says it created in the Middle East.

READ MORE: Philippines: Hundreds trapped in battle for Marawi

He said the fighting in Marawi, along with smaller battles elsewhere in the southern Philippines, may be precursors to declaring a province, which would be "a huge success for the terrorists".

Last week, two suicide bombings in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed three police officers, an attack claimed by ISIL. While Indonesia has been battling local fighters since 2002, the rise of ISIL has breathed new life into those networks and raised concern about the risk of Indonesian fighters returning home from the Middle East.

Analysts have warned that as ISIL is weakened in Syria and Iraq, battered by years of American-led attacks, Mindanao could become a focal point for regional fighters.

Southeast Asian fighters fleeing the Middle East "could look to Mindanao to provide temporary refuge as they work their way home", said a report late last year by the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, predicting a high risk of regional violence.

Marawi is regarded as the heartland of the Islamic faith on Mindanao island.

Muslim rebels have been waging a separatist rebellion in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation for decades. The largest armed group dropped its secessionist demands in 1996, when it signed an autonomy deal with the Philippine government. Amid continuing poverty and other social ills, restiveness among minority Muslims has continued.

Hapilon is an Islamic preacher and former commander of the Abu Sayyaf group who pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2014. He now heads an alliance of at least 10 smaller groups, including the Maute.

Acmad Aliponto, a 56-year-old court sheriff who decided not to flee the city, said while the fighters were well-armed, he believes they have little local support, and that the recent violence could turn more people against them.

"In the end their relatives and everyday people may be the ones who will kill them," he said. "Look at what they did. So many were affected." </s> (CNN) The black flag of ISIS has been raised in the Philippines.

At least 103 people have died in the city of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao in less than a week as fighters affiliated with the so-called Islamic State engaged in violent clashes with government forces, and martial law was declared over the entire island

Local resident Chico Usman said the militants had entered the predominantly Muslim city of some 200,000 suddenly, on the afternoon of May 24, wearing masks and carrying assault rifles. "Everybody was shocked and ran into their houses," he said, adding they could hear gunfire and fighting until the following morning.

An ISIS fighter erects the flag of the so-called Islamic State atop a school near a mosque in Marawi, southern Philippines on May 24, 2017.

Black ISIS flags emblazoned in white with the words "There is no god but God" were flying from "every corner in the city," said Usman, who spoke to CNN from near Saguiaran, a town outside Marawi, where thousands of fleeing residents had taken temporary shelter.

Photos showed long queues of cars piled with people and belongings, as tanks and armored troop vehicles headed in the opposite direction.

Clashes between government forces and militants had claimed the lives of 19 civilians, 11 military and four policemen, as of Sunday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The AFP confirmed 61 militants had also been killed.

In a separate incident , eight other people -- thought to be fleeing the city -- were found dead in a ravine. Witnesses said the victims were asked to recite Muslim prayers, according to CNN Philippines. Those who failed were taken by the armed men. The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country but Mindanao has a significant Muslim population.

Philippine marines aboard their vehicles maneuver through a street on their way to an assault on the hide out of Muslim militants near the town center in Marawi, in southern island of Mindanao on May 28, 2017.

The latest violence flared up on May 23, after the military launched an operation targeting Isnilon Hapilon, a Filipino militant leader, who was last year designated ISIS emir for Southeast Asia.

Surrounded and fearing capture, Hapilon is thought to have issued an emergency call for reinforcements from members of the Maute group, a local Islamist militant organization that's pledged allegiance to ISIS, who poured into Marawi by the hundreds, setting fire to buildings, taking hostages and entering into running street-battles with government forces as they came.

While Islamist and criminal groups have been active in the lawless tri-border area between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia for years, such an audacious and aggressive attack on government troops by fighters loyal to ISIS has shocked many observers -- and increased fears the group is succeeding in extending its influence into Southeast Asia.

An Asian caliphate?

"What's happening in Mindanao is no longer a rebellion of Filipino citizens. It has transmogrified into invasion by foreign terrorists," said Philippines Solicitor General Jose Calida during a press briefing l ast week. "They want to create Mindanao as part of the caliphate."

While ISIS has yet to declare a wilayah -- or state -- of the caliphate in Southeast Asia as it has done in Libya and Saudi Arabia , many analysts believe it is merely a matter of time.

The influence of ISIS has spread throughout Southeast Asia in recent years, with more than 60 groups in the region pledging allegiance to self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to Rohan Gunaratna , head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR).

Maute group militants display the flag of the so-called Islamic State in Marawi, Philippines on May 24, 2017.

Last week's suicide attacks in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, which claimed the lives of three police officers, is a case in point. Though carried out by Indonesian nationals, Jakarta police suspect the attacks are linked to ISIS.

While in Malaysia, six suspected militants -- including a alleged ISIS arms smuggler -- were picked up in special operation by the country's Counter Terrorism Division last week. Other recent attacks throughout the region, including last year's grenade blast in a bar near Kuala Lumpur, have also been attributed to the terror network.

Unified Islamist front

Ties between the Philippines-based groups, which have led much of violence in recent years, and their counterparts in Indonesia and Malaysia are also growing. In April this year, a Philippines military strike on suspected ISIS-affiliated Maute militants in the Lanao del Sur province of Mindanao, killed 37, including three Indonesians and one Malaysian who were believed to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah -- an Indonesia-based terror group.

According to Otso Iho, a senior analyst at Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, increased cooperation between groups is a significant step towards "generating a much more unified Islamist front particularly in the southern Philippines."

A report by the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), however, noted that while ISIS "has deepened cooperation among extremist groups in Southeast Asia," law enforcement and counter terrorist efforts remain largely national.

Residents of Marawi in the southern Philippines flee the city as government forces and ISIS militants clash.

"Geographical and sovereignty issues, competing territorial claims and regional politicking ... seem to be hindering regional cooperation," warned analysts Jasminder Singh and Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani in a report last year

If action is not taken, they said, the region risks becoming a Southeast Asian version of the tribal areas along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Risks to which Mindanao is particularly vulnerable.

The southernmost island in the Philippines, Mindanao has long been plagued by conflict, with the region experiencing Communist insurgencies, nationalist rebellions, and brutal military crackdowns launched from Manila.

According to the United Nations World Food Program, outbreaks of conflict in 2000 and 2008 "each led to the displacement of nearly a million individuals."

This instability, combined with the porous maritime borders between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia that make it easy for groups to flee any crackdowns, has helped to establish the area an ideal hideout for drug smugglers, pirates, kidnap-for-cash groups, and increasingly, terrorists from across the region.

ISIS goes east

In a 2016 video circulated online, armed men -- most appearing no older than teenagers -- stand holding assault rifles and other weapons, as Arabic music plays in the background. They join their hands and pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State.

Later in the video, a Malaysian fighter urges viewers who cannot travel to the Middle East to go instead "to the Philippines." He then joins two other fighters -- identified as Filipino and Indonesian -- in beheading three Christian captives.

Bearing the trademark high production values and gruesome executions of the core ISIS propaganda wing, the video represented the growing importance of Southeast Asia to the group's leaders in Syria. Recent issues of Rumiyah -- a monthly propaganda magazine published by ISIS in multiple languages -- have also highlighted actions by Islamic State fighters against the "Filipino Crusader army" in the region.

According to researchers at ICPVTR in Singapore, ISIS has formed Katibah Al-Muhajir -- the Brigade of the Migrant -- to organize fighters in Southeast Asia.

Philippine marines take their position as they begin an assault on Muslim militants near the city hall in Marawi, in southern island of Mindanao on May 28, 2017.

"For approximately 500 Malaysian Ringgit, a prospective foreign jihadist can secure his travel arrangements, from Malaysia to the Philippines, and be given a complimentary weapon," analysts Singh and Bin Jani wrote in their report last year. This brigade is under the command of Hapilon.

A skinny, baby-faced 51-year-old, Hapilon is originally from Basilan, an island in the southern part of Mindanao in the Sulu archipelago, according to the FBI

The militant leader, who first came to prominence as the commander of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, has a long rap sheet -- including a series of high-profile kidnappings-for-ransom of foreign nationals in the southern Philippines.

He was endorsed by ISIS as the emir for Southeast Asia in 2016, according to IPAC despite the fact he speaks "neither Arabic nor English, and his religious knowledge is limited."

His stature -- as confirmed by the Maute group's coming to his aid, along with a $5 million US government bounty for information that would lead to his capture or conviction -- is likely based on his ties to foreign jihadis and other ISIS-linked groups in the region, IPAC said in the report last year.

Members of Philippine police special forces maneuver as they launch an assault on Muslim militants near the city hall in Marawi on May 28, 2017.

Returnee fighters

Regional cooperation in combating militants such as Hapilon may become more important than ever before, as experts predict loss of land in Syria and Iraq will see ISIS leadership turn more attention to the southern Philippines.

Whether because they are sent there by al Baghdadi, or because they are fleeing Syrians and Kurds and other fronts, there are hundreds of local Southeast Asian fighters poised to bring their expertise and ideological commitment to the region.

According to a report by the Carnegie Council , up to "1,000 Southeast Asians may have traveled to ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East." Though such numbers are unconfirmed, multiple regional officials have expressed alarm at the lack of transnational programs and strategies in place to deal with potential returnees.

Australian Attorney General George Brandis who is a strong proponent of a more joined-up approach -- and who recently labeled the security threat of returning fighters as among the "greatest in the region" -- has said the matter would be discussed at an upcoming meeting of Asian security ministers later this year.

"Governments in the region have to constantly be vigilant against the threat of the returnees," said Singapore-based analyst Bin Jani.

Along with the hundreds of fighters in the Middle East known to authorities, there are many more who are not being tracked, Bin Jani said, "militants can be very unassuming when they're not carrying their guns."
In an unconfirmed video, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant instructs its followers to go and fight in the Philippines instead of the Middle East.