ISIS unveil the Philippines as their new breeding ground for jihadis with their latest propaganda video featuring a secret Filipino jungle training camp

From the Daily Mail (Dec 21): ISIS unveil the Philippines as their new breeding ground for jihadis with their latest propaganda video featuring a secret Filipino jungle training camp

*ISIS release new video showing jihadi training camp in the Philippines

*Militant recruits shown going through a basic assault course in the jungle

*It Is the first time ISIS branded footage has emerged from the Philippines showing jihadi training activity 

The Philippines has become the latest ISIS target for expansion after the jihadi group released its first propaganda video of a terror training camp in the Filipino jungle.

Several jihadi commanders are shown urging Filipinos to travel to Syria to join ISIS before revealing the group have already started their own terror camp in the Philippines. 

The footage shows the 'soldiers of the Caliphate in the Philippines' working on their fitness and agility by completing a series of assault course drills.

A small group of recruits, each wearing similar black clothing and masks, are shown climbing up rope ladders, crawling under barbed wire and practicing with weapons




Recruits are forced to crawl under a fence of barbed wire as a commander lets off occasional gunshots

A small group of recruits, each wearing similar black clothing and masks, are shown climbing up rope ladders, crawling under barbed wire and practicing with weapons. 

The Filipino government has long said that support for ISIS in the Philippines was limited to local bandits claiming allegiance to the group.

However, the latest propaganda video suggests that the jihadi group has earmarked the Philippines as a potential site for establishing further new bases.  

The new video comes after eight members of a criminal gang that pledged allegiance to ISIS were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines last month.

 

The hour-long battle took place in Palimbang, a remote town in the south - home to the predominantly Catholic nation's Muslim minority and the scene of decades of conflict. 

 

[ISIS video shows jihadi training camp in Philippines Jungle]
 

The Philippines has become the latest ISIS target for expansion after the jihadi group released its first propaganda video showing a jihadi training camp in the Filipino jungle




Many of the structures used in the assault course appear to have been made by hand out of bamboo




The Filipino government has long said that support for ISIS in the Philippines was limited to local bandits claiming allegiance to the group

The bandits were from Ansar al-Khalifa, a small group that declared its support for ISIS in a video circulated on the Internet last year, regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan said. 

The larger Abu Sayyaf group has also pledged its allegiance to ISIS and is holding at least four foreign nationals hostages. 

The group is demanding millions of dollars in ransom for their safe release and have released several videos threatening them with execution.

Tan told AFP that five black flags similar to those used by Islamic State fighters were recovered from the bandits after the clash.

Criminal gangs operate kidnap for ransom and extortion activities alongside Muslim and communist separatist campaigns in the restive south.



Several jihadi commanders are shown urging Filipino to travel to Syria to join Syria before revealing the group have already started their own terror camp



The new video comes after eight members of a criminal gang that pledged allegiance to ISIS were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines last month



One alleged jihadi supporter holds a banner while one of the recruits carries out a jumping exercise

While the relatively new Ansar al-Khalifa had extorted from businessmen and stolen cattle from farmers, it had no proven links with Islamic State - also known by the acronym ISIS - national military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said.

'This group is trying to ride on the popularity of the ISIS, but they're not really ISIS,' he told AFP. 'We view them as mere criminal gangs.'

 

Tan said the military was verifying intelligence reports that one of the eight killed was an Indonesian national. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3368646/ISIS-unveil-Philippines-new-breeding-ground-jihadis-latest-propaganda-video-featuring-secret-Filipino-jungle-training-camp.html