The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) announced that
there is no "direct verifiable and credible presence" of any
international terrorist group in Mindanao .
This was stressed by AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto
Padilla in a briefing Monday.
"And we believe that the names of big groups like Daesh
(another name for the Islamic State extremists) is only being brought into the
conversation because of their desire to get further attention from many players
out there in the field," he added.
Padilla issued the statement in wake of claims made by Moro
Islamic Liberation Front chair Murad Ebrahim saying that IS terrorists are
capitalizing on the frustration of the Moro people over the non-passage of the
Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in order to gain a foothold in Mindanao .
"We are not putting much weight on those pronouncement
but we’re putting much weight on the ability of our local terrorist
organization within the locality to recruit from among the young members,"
he added.
Regarding the stalled passage of the BBL, Padilla said peace
process deals often go through long and ardous passages before being finalized.
The good thing is that many Muslim elders are telling the
younger generation about the realities on the ground and assuring them that it
is only part of the political dynamics, he added.
And in due time, once these realities have been observed, a
more lasting peace mechanism will be crafted in due time.
"We are banking and very optimistic on the commitment
of so many sectors to peace and that is the only that matters to us for the
moment but this is the warning that we have as an Armed Forces, if there are
forces out there who will challenge the primacy of the peace process and who
will challenge and try to disturb the peace we can guarantee you that the full
force of the miltiary , our Armed Forces, will be applied to all these threat
forces," Padilla said.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=864033
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