Govt sets up monitoring of extremists

From the Manila Standard Today (Oct 3): Govt sets up monitoring of extremists

Despite denying that there is a direct link between the Islamic State (ISIS) and local extremist groups, President Benigno Aquino III has created a technical working group as early as last August monitor and profile foreign fighters and terrorist groups.

This was disclosed by Anti-Terrorism Council executive director Oscar Valenzuela in a chance interview during the Forum on Current Dynamics of Radicalism in Southeast Asia on Thursday.

Valenzuela acknowledged that overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East are highly vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, but he said the ATC is still verifying reports of actual recruitment.

“The situation in Syria and Iraq also has implications on the country in as far as OFWs in these areas are present. OFWs comprise a vulnerable sector for terrorist recruitment, especially with the reported abundance of money of ISIS,” he said.

Valenzuela said based on raw intelligence reports, ISIS has been earning about $1 million to $3 million from the oil fields in northern Iraq and eastern Syria that it has taken control of.

He said the inter-agency TWG was created sometime in August, or a few weeks after the July 14 confidential memo submitted by Philippine Center for Transnational Crime executive director Felizardo Serapio Jr. to Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.

Serapio’s memo cited a March 20 report from the Department of Foreign Affairs that two Filipinos were killed in Syria while fighting with the rebel group.

It also noted that the DFA report pointed to some 100 Filipinos who traveled to Iran had undergone military training and were deployed to Syria.
According to Ambassador Guy Ledoux, head of the European Union in the Philippines, the ISIS has been very active in recruiting foreign fighters.

Ledoux said in Europe alone, more than 3,000 radicals have been recruited by ISIS, mostly coming from France, United Kingdom, Germany and The Netherlands.

Valenzuela confirmed that the intelligence community is still verifying the report of the two Filipino fatalities in Syria.

As to the 100 Filipinos who reportedly underwent training in Iran, Valenzuela said this has already been denied by the Iranian ambassador to Manila.

According to Brig. Gen. Joselito Kakilala, head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Office of Strategic Studies and Strategy Management, the local group Khilafa Isamiyah Mindanao has pledged allegiance to ISIS but there is no evidence to confirm a direct link.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/10/03/govt-sets-up-monitoring-of-extremists/