The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has formed a task force to counter recruitment by the Islamist State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Philippines.
Mr Mohagher Iqbal, the group's chief negotiator, said videos released last month by local Islamist groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIS were "authentic". But he said the MILF, which signed a peace deal with the government in 2014 after fighting a decades-long secessionist war, had yet to verify whether there is already a "formal ISIS organisation" in the restive southern island of Mindanao.
The task force the MILF is forming will consist of "Islamic preachers" tasked to counter "ISIS distortions" of the Koran and Islamic teachings, he said.
Mr Iqbal said ISIS is seizing opportunities as Muslims in the Philippines "are frustrated", especially after the peace pact his group brokered with the Philippines had been bogged down in congressional warnings.
But a botched operation to arrest Malaysian extremist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, last year provided opportunities for opposition lawmakers to stonewall the proposed law.
Over 40 police commandos who engaged hundreds of Muslim fighters, including some who belonged to the MILF, were killed in that operation.
Recent intelligence reports suggest that the Philippines is becoming a breeding ground for Islamist fightters seeking to joing ISIS. Two videos released last week sought to show the militants' purported strength. One showed what appeared to be a training camp on a clearing in the middle of a jungle somewhere in Midnanao. The other claimed that four battalions of militants from the Philippines and Malaysia have merged into a single unit under a leadership council now beith steered by Abu Sayyaf ideologue, Isnilon Hapilon.
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/milf-forms-task-force-to-counter-isis
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