Palace denies jihadist camps

From The Standard (Dec 23): Palace denies jihadist camps

EVEN after the military overran a jihadist training camp in Basilan last week and the London tabloid Daily Mail showed a propaganda video of extremists training,

Malacañang insisted on Tuesday that there are no jihadist training camps in Mindanao.

“[The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] has no training camps in the Philippines,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. told Palace reporters.

“What ISIS-linked personalities have done is to try to link-up with local jihadist/terrorist groups,” Coloma said. “Some of these ISIS-linked personalities, who are really few in number, have also sought refuge in the base areas of these local terrorist groups.”

The Palace issued the denial after the Daily Mail published pictures from a propaganda video boasting of a training camp, purportedly in the Philippines, showing masked men training under the black flag similar to that of ISIS.

But the military said it is not dismissing any information that pertains to terrorism in the Philippines, although Armed Forces spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said Tuesday they have no solid confirmation that the bases were indeed in the Philippines or elsewhere.

“We take all video materials that have come out in the Internet seriously,” Padilla said. “Not one of them has been put aside and all of them are serious things that bear on our security. That’s why we need to validate and authenticate them very carefully.”

“The video material has been brought to our attention and we already had a copy of it and submitted this for validation and authentication to cyber forensics,” Padilla said.

Padilla admitted that such images are no lonegr new to the military since they have been receiving such information for several months already.

Padilla said the likely motive of the video is to entice recruits through the social media. “You know, social media now is the easiest way by Islamic terrorists to inspire and recruit,” he said.

But a counter-terrorism expert urged authorities to strengthen its defenses against possible terrorist threats, especially after the military killed an Indonesian and a Malaysian who are known to be jihadists who have been hiding out with local extremists.

The security expert, who asked not to be identified, said the killing of Indonesian bomb maker Sucipto Ibrahim Ali in Sultan Kudarat last November and Malaysian extremist Mohammad Hussien, alias Abu Anas, in Basilan last week is proof of jihadists’ growing presence in the country.

Sucipto and Abu Anas are believed to be part of a group of 10 foreign jihadists with links to the Islamic State who are in the country for still unknown reasons.

The security expert warned against possible revenge attacks from group which has reportedly dispatched seven militants from Sulu to Metro Manila even before the Asia Pacific Economic Forum in Manila last month.

“The killing of two terrorists and the emergence of the propaganda video manifests partial confirmation of IS training camps in the country,” the source said.

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