An Analysis on the Evolution of the ISIS Threat in Southern

Philippines

Abstract

With ISIS losing swaths of their former strongholds in Syria and Iraq, the jihadist group
had to look somewhere else to make its presence still relevant and not end up like Al-
Qaeda and other earlier Islamist extremist groups who have either become dormant,
extinct or decimated. Southeast Asia, which is home to many ISIS-inspired local jihadist
groups, became a logical and convenient choice for ISIS to relocate its training ground
and pursue their objective of establishing a caliphate in this part of the world.

On 23 May 2017, foreign ISIS militants together with the combined Maute and Abu
Sayyaf groups laid siege to the relatively peaceful Islamic Ctiy of Marawi in North
Central Mindanao in their attempt to establish a ‘wiilayah’ or province in Southeast Asia
reminiscent of the events that transpired in Raqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq a few years
ago. The siege that lasted for over five months pushed the government’s back against
the wall as 168 soldiers and at least 45 civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands
internally displaced and a large part of the city destroyed. Although the terrorists failed
to achieve their goal of establishing a “wilayah” in Mindanao, it opened a “pandora’s
box” of the ISIS threat in the country. More than the physical damage in lives and
properties it had inflicted, the siege left a scar in the minds of the Filipinos on the
seriousness of the threat of violent extremism not only in Southern Philippines but in the
entire country. The lessons of the Marawi crisis have both become the rallying point in
the war against terrorism and a wake-up call for the government particularly the security
sector in the formulation of a sound and proactive strategy on preventing and countering
the onslaught of violent extremism.