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Philippines War on ISIS, Abu Sayaf, Maute: News & Discussions

The CIA’s Cloddish ISIS Attack on Duterte
F. William Engdahl


The only word I find for it is cloddish. I refer to the latest CIA-instigated attempt to initiate regime change against outspoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The so-called ISIS terror attack in the minerals-rich southern Philippines island of Mindanao, a predominately Muslim part of the mostly Christian nation of 100 million people, took place literally in the midst of President Duterte’s talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Duterte-Putin talks in turn followed Duterte’s attendance in Beijing on May 15 for the first New Silk Road or Belt Road Forum. America’s colonial asset since 1898 was clearly walking away from the Washington “reservation.”

The terrorist siege in Marawi City is blatantly a desperate Washington try to topple the very popular (80% popularity in polls) Duterte, who successfully won the Presidency last June over a US-backed Mar Roxas, a US-educated former Wall Street banker. Since taking office Duterte has made bold and quite courageous steps to steer the former US Colony towards a Eurasian alliance with China and Russia as his major supporters. In Beijing in October last year, Duterte met China’s Xi Jinping and signed numerous trade deals with China. Critically, taking an opposite policy to his pro-US predecessor Benigno Aquino III, Duterte agreed to resolve the South China Sea dispute between Philippines and China through peaceful diplomatic talks, and to as he put it, “seek a separation from the United States.”

Since then Duterte has sought closer ties with Russia as well, in a further effort to bring his nation out from under the yoke of a de facto US control. This does not sit well with the circles of the so-called Deep State in Washington –the CIA and their nefarious friends. Should the US lose the Philippines, it would pose a devastating strategic geopolitical loss to the US military containment strategy against China and Russia in the Pacific. Devastating.

The recent attacks and siege in Mindanao were nominally done by the terrorist Maute gang and Abu Sayyaf criminal terrorist organizations, both nominally tied to the US-created ISIS fake Islamist operation, a CIA terrorist project created with Saudi money going back to the CIA’s Osama Bin Laden Al Qaeda Mujahideen Operation Cyclone during the 1980’s against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

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ISIS Maute lay siege in Marawi.
Duterte’s Eurasian Pivot
It comes as no surprise to anyone closely following the evolving dialogues between Duterte and the leaders of China and now, Russia that the CIA would try to destabilize Duterte at this critical time. They simply hide behind the black skirts of their psychopathic drug-running Maute and Abu Sayyaf, both now tied to the CIA and Mossad-created and Saudi-financed ISIS.

In Moscow, despite having to cut short his talks with Putin to fly back home and deal with the terrorist crisis in Mindanao, the Philippine leader and his Secretaries of Defense and Foreign Affairs managed to sign a number of critical agreements with Russia. These included 10 major agreements aimed at deepening bilateral defense, strategic and economic relations. The two countries signed an Agreement on Defense Cooperation, a legal framework for military-to-military exchanges, training, intelligence-sharing. The Philippines and Russia also signed an intelligence exchange agreement to bolster counter-terror cooperation. That does not please Washington at all.

A ‘Country Bumpkin’ Not
Western mainstream media has delighted in portraying the 71-year-old veteran politician Duterte as a crude country bumpkin, a lower-than-peasant creature who is only capable of vulgar statements, such as when shortly after his inauguration he called the US Ambassador to Manila a ”gay son of a bitch“ for criticizing Duterte’s war on drug lords and dealers plaguing the country. Whether Duterte was factually correct, he clearly won sympathy of millions of his countrymen for having the courage to stand up against the American power.

After closely watching Duterte and his choice of close advisers now for almost a year, I’ve come to the conclusion a country bumpkin Duterte is definitely not. Rather, he is a shrewd political actor who is determined to bring his country out of the colonial servitude status it has held since the first Spanish colonialization in 1565.

Duterte is the first Mindanaoan to hold the Presidential office. Ethnically he is of Visayan descent. This fact is not irrelevant. The Visayans in Mindanao and other Philippine islands led a war for independence against Spanish occupation in 1896.

The United States, posing as the supporter of the Visayan-led war of independence from Spain, betrayed the trust assured the Philippines, double-crossed them and signed a Treaty with Spain, the Treaty of Paris of 1898, under which Spain ceded Cuba and The Philippines to the United States. The USA refused to recognize the independence of their erstwhile ally, the Philippines, and took the country by military force, America’s first genuine imperial grab. The nascent First Philippine Republic then formally declared war against the United States in 1899, unsuccessfully. It was put under US military control. It took until 1946 before the country could be recognized as an independent sovereign state, at least in name.

That historical heritage of Duterte as a Visayan clearly is a living fact for Duterte. He graduated Philippines University and earned a degree in law in 1972. As a lawyer, he was prosecutor in Davao City in Mindanao and later Mayor, one of the longest-serving mayors of the Philippines with seven terms over 22 years. As Mayor, Duterte passed the city’s Women Development Code, the only such code in the country. Its aim is “to uphold the rights of women and the belief in their worth and dignity as human beings.” He pushed for the Magna Carta for Women in Davao, a comprehensive women’s human rights law that seeks to eliminate discrimination against women. As President he has made a domestic focus on poverty reduction.

There is clearly more to the man than lurid western media reports reveal. Now this very popular President is determined to make his country a sovereign nation able to choose with whom it allies and for what ends, and how its economy develops. This is why the CIA and its fake Jihadist networks are being jacked up to try to get rid of Rodrigo Duterte.

ISIS: Bloody Pawprints of CIA and Mossad
The networks of the US Deep State, primarily the CIA have chosen their favorite cover, the otherwise laughable deception of head-choppers calling itself the Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL or DAESH (CIA central casting seems to have trouble settling on a name). In reality IS, or the groups that spring up conveniently in Syria, in Iraq, in Chechnya–wherever the CIA decides it needs a terror hit squad–are trained mercenary killers, trained variously by CIA or Pentagon Special Forces; by Pakistani ISI intelligence, at least formerly, or by Mossad, also known as Israeli Secret intelligence Service, or by MI-6. In the Philippines, the IS alleged affiliates, especially the Maute group that has laid siege to Marawi City, are little more than a criminal band that finances itself by terror, occasional beheading to exert ransom in a protection racket, recruiting child fighters. Recently the networks of the CIA have been pouring in their foreign mercenaries from Syria, Libya and other places to beef up Maute’s gang for the attack on Duterte’s rule, portraying it as a religious-based “liberation struggle.”

ISIS came out of the CIA’s Al Qaeda franchise called Al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2010 its name was changed to ISIS. Then as Israeli journalists pointed out the embarrassing fact that the English acronym for the Hebrew spelling of Mossad was ISIS (Israeli Secret Intelligence Services abruptly they decided to call their band of mercenaries with their black flags and US M16 assault rifles, IS for Islamic State. Conveniently in Syria they control the very territory where competing Qatari and Iran gas pipelines to the Mediterranean would run. Curiously, despite the fact they are active in the Golan Heights where Israel has its eye on stealing a huge amount of newly-discovered Syrian oil, they have never attacked Israel. The one time an accidental hit on an Israeli target took place, IS apologized…Do real head-choppers ever apologize?

When the fake CIA Sarin gas attack in Ghouta in 2013 failed to get a UN mandate for all-out war to depose Bashar al Assad–Obama’s infamous “red line”–the NATO and NATO-linked networks created the monster they now call IS in 2014.

Today the CIA uses IS as the cover to justify keeping US forces in Iraq after the government asked them to leave; a cover to bomb Syria in order to topple Assad, something Russian presence has made embarrassingly difficult since September, 2015. And they use it to recruit thousands of young psycho recruits from over the Muslim work, train them and send them back to places like Chechnya in Russia or Xinjiang in China, or Balochistan Province in Pakistan where the Chinese have built a new deep water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea near Iran, the heart of its $46 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a strategic part of its One Belt, One Road Eurasian infrastructure project.

duterte-cabinet-meeting-marawi-siege.jpg

In this photo provided by the Presidential Communications Operations Office, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte listens during a special cabinet meeting in Davao city, southern Philippines, Thursday, May 25, 2017. Duterte declared 60 days of martial law on Tuesday across the southern third of the nation, an area that includes Marawi but extends well beyond it. ISIS-linked militants launched a violent siege in Marawi that sent thousands of people fleeing for their lives and raised fears of extremists gaining traction in the country. Presidential Communications Operations Office via AP
Now the West’s favorite terrorist mercenaries are being told to take down Duterte in the Philippines. They probably are too late and have badly underestimated their adversaries.

But then with the deterioration over recent decades in the quality of American university education, the current generation of strategists at Langley likely missed the basic course in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, especially the part that cautions generals who wish to be victorious to “know yourself and know your enemy,” something that Duterte seems to have thought about.

How the IS destabilization try in the Philippines unfolds in coming weeks may well determine a major turning point towards creation of the emerging China-Russia-centered Eurasian Century.

William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
 
Marawi siege may be over soon: military official
Reuters
Posted at Jun 08 2017 01:36 PM

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The siege of Marawi City in the southern Philippines could be over soon because the logistics of the Islamist militants holed up there have been disrupted and they have been reduced to a "small resistance."

Major General Carlito Galvez, head of the military command in Western Mindanao region, told a news conference in Marawi City that troops had entered three areas from which the pro-Islamic State fighters had pulled back.

"We saw food, IEDs, mobility assets. Considering we have paralysed logistics capability, we are looking at the possibility that the end will be near," he said.

He added that the military believed "more or less 100" civilians were still being held hostage by the militants.

The battle for Marawi has raised concern that Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao that could pose a threat to neighboring Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Officials have said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from Indonesia and Malaysia but also fighters from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The strike on Marawi City suggested to many that pro-Islamic State outfits wanted to establish the town as a Southeast Asian ‘wilayat’ – or governorate.

The military has said that the fighters are increasingly penned in around a built-up area of the town, and troops have been clearing houses that the militants had defended with snipers for the past two weeks.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by John Chalmers)

http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/08/17/marawi-siege-may-be-over-soon-military-official
 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...philippine-marines-dead-40-wounded/386412001/


U.S. forces help quell ISIS-linked siege that left 13 Philippine marines dead

U.S. special forces are helping the Philippine army quell a nearly three-week siege by Islamic State-linked militant groups in Marawi where 13 Philippine marines were killed, officials said Saturday.

The U.S. is assisting with surveillance for the local troops, but not putting boots on the ground, a Philippine military spokesperson confirmed. "They are not fighting. They are just providing technical support," said military spokesman Lt. Col. Jo-ar Herrera at a news conference.

Video footage from Philippine news channel ABS-CBN News showed a US PS Orion intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft flying over Marawi on Friday.

"At the request of the government of the Philippines, U.S. special operations forces are assisting the (Armed Forces of the Philippines) with ongoing operations in Marawi that help AFP commanders on the ground in their fight against Maute and ASG militants," the U.S. Embassy in Manila said in a statement.

“The United States is a proud ally of the Philippines, and we will continue to work with the Philippines to address shared threats to the peace and security of our countries, including on counterterrorism issues,” the statement said.

The Maute group, also known as Islamic State Lanao, led the attack on Marawi which began on May 23 and has resulted in the deaths of 58 security forces, 20 civilians and around 138 militant fighters.

ASG stands for the Abu Sayyaf Group, another militant group involved in the Marawi fighting.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law on the island of Mindanao, where Marawi is located, on May 24, citing the rising threat of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“We are in a state of emergency,” Duterte said. “I have a serious problem in Mindanao and the ISIS footprints are everywhere.”

Since taking office last year, Duterte has sought to limit military cooperation with the U.S., scaling back joint military exercises and canceling plans for joint maritime patrols, while pushing for closer relations with China and Russia.

More than 200,000 residents have been displaced from Marawi since the fighting began. The militants control an area of the city with about 2,000 hostages.

Col. Herrera told reporters the militants were entrenched in a mosque and using hostages as human shields, making it harder for security forces to carry out attacks.

***********************
Hmm...has any other country's military been asked by Duterte to help them? :rofl: China? Indonesia? Malaysia? Nope!! Just the US! I guess we are the only one he can trust.
 
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...philippine-marines-dead-40-wounded/386412001/


U.S. forces help quell ISIS-linked siege that left 13 Philippine marines dead

U.S. special forces are helping the Philippine army quell a nearly three-week siege by Islamic State-linked militant groups in Marawi where 13 Philippine marines were killed, officials said Saturday.

The U.S. is assisting with surveillance for the local troops, but not putting boots on the ground, a Philippine military spokesperson confirmed. "They are not fighting. They are just providing technical support," said military spokesman Lt. Col. Jo-ar Herrera at a news conference.

Video footage from Philippine news channel ABS-CBN News showed a US PS Orion intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft flying over Marawi on Friday.

"At the request of the government of the Philippines, U.S. special operations forces are assisting the (Armed Forces of the Philippines) with ongoing operations in Marawi that help AFP commanders on the ground in their fight against Maute and ASG militants," the U.S. Embassy in Manila said in a statement.

“The United States is a proud ally of the Philippines, and we will continue to work with the Philippines to address shared threats to the peace and security of our countries, including on counterterrorism issues,” the statement said.

The Maute group, also known as Islamic State Lanao, led the attack on Marawi which began on May 23 and has resulted in the deaths of 58 security forces, 20 civilians and around 138 militant fighters.

ASG stands for the Abu Sayyaf Group, another militant group involved in the Marawi fighting.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law on the island of Mindanao, where Marawi is located, on May 24, citing the rising threat of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“We are in a state of emergency,” Duterte said. “I have a serious problem in Mindanao and the ISIS footprints are everywhere.”

Since taking office last year, Duterte has sought to limit military cooperation with the U.S., scaling back joint military exercises and canceling plans for joint maritime patrols, while pushing for closer relations with China and Russia.

More than 200,000 residents have been displaced from Marawi since the fighting began. The militants control an area of the city with about 2,000 hostages.

Col. Herrera told reporters the militants were entrenched in a mosque and using hostages as human shields, making it harder for security forces to carry out attacks.

"At the request of the government of the Philippines."

That doesn't exactly fit the narrative of "the US is trying to destabilize the Philippines" that so many are attempting to peddle here.:lol:
 
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Live TV
US forces helping Philippines battle ISIS-linked fighters
By Elizabeth Joseph, Joe Sterling and Spencer Feingold, CNN
Updated 2:02 PM EDT, Sat June 10, 2017
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Story highlights
  • Thirteen Philippine marines killed in battle Friday
  • Fighting underway in Mindanao in southern Philippines
(CNN)US Special Operations Forces are assisting the Philippine military in its battle against ISIS-affiliated fighters, the US Embassy in Manila said Saturday.

The forces have been deployed at the request of the Philippine government, the embassy said.

The Philippine armed forces have been fighting the ISIS-linked Maute militants for control of the city of Marawi in the southern Mindanao region.


Dozens of Philippine troops and militants have been reported killed in fighting, including more than a dozen marines Friday.

Both the US Embassy and the Pentagon said they couldn't give specifics on the nature of the American support for "security reasons."

The Pentagon noted that US Special Operations Forces "have been providing support and assistance in the southern Philippines for many years, at the request of several different Filipino administrations."

The number of troops there ranges between 50 to 100 at any given time, the Pentagon said.

"As we have in the past, we routinely consult with our Filipino partners at senior levels to support the Duterte administration's counterterrorism efforts," the embassy said, referring to President Rodrigo Duterte.

"The United States is a proud ally of the Philippines, and we will continue to work with the Philippines to address shared threats to the peace and security of our countries, including on counterterrorism issues."



A 'temporary setback'


At least 13 Philippine marines were killed and 40 others wounded Friday during fighting with Maute militants in Marawi, the Philippine military said Saturday.

The fatalities occurred during a clearing operation over a 14-hour period.

The deaths bring the toll in the three-week Marawi campaign to 58 Philippine troops and at least 140 extremist militants, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency.

"This temporary setback has not diminished our resolve a bit," said Marine Col. Edgard Arevalo, a military spokesman.

"It instead primed up our determination to continue our prudent advances to neutralize the enemy, save the innocent lives trapped in the fight, and set the conditions for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Marawi."



Fighting the militants' message online


The fight against the Maute militants is proceeding on social media as well as the ground.

The Philippine military has called on Facebook to close 63 accounts linked to Maute militants engaged in the fighting.

At a press conference Friday in Marawi, Lt. Col. Jo-Ar Herrera said the military had uncovered accounts used by militants that focus on "spreading propaganda messaging and misinformation."

Without confirming the request from the Philippines, a Facebook spokesman said the company has "well-established law enforcement channels for governments to contact us about emergencies."

He said that Facebook removes any account tied to "groups or people that engage in terrorist activity, or posts that express support for terrorism."

The request to Facebook comes just before the military's goal of liberating Marawi by June 12 -- the country's Independence Day.

The government is also using TV to counter the militants' message.

The state-run People's Television Network aired a program Friday called "Countering Violent Extremism."

It explored the root cause of such extremism and offered suggestions on how to confront radicalization.

The government said it is preparing infrastructure repairs in Marawi once the region is cleared.

"We assure you that the President is deeply concerned for the city, the region and the island's well-being and is very hands-on to ensure that normalcy will be restored at the soonest possible time and serve people's aspirations for a comfortable life for all,"presidential spokesman Ernesto Abellasaid, speaking on a radio program.

CNN's Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....ppines-battle-isis-linked-fighters/index.html

Jeez how incompetent is the Philippines army that they cant retake a city from a mere hundred militants/terrorists for over 3weeks now and counting? Now they have called on "evil " U.S for help. Me who thought Duterte was a man of his word. :disagree:
 
lol evil US just doing the dirty work again

lol evil US just doing the dirty work again
 
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se...rug-users-ignored-rise-of-isis-in-philippines

Duterte, focused on war on drug users, ignored rise of ISIS in Philippines

MANILA (NYTIMES) - It was classic bravado from the Philippines' tough-guy president, Rodrigo Duterte.

The Maute Group, a militant Islamic band fighting government troops near the southern Philippines city of Marawi last year, had asked for a cease-fire.

The president rejected the overture.

"They said that they will go down upon Marawi to burn the place," Duterte recounted in December. "And I said, 'Go ahead, do it.'"

He got his wish.

Hundreds of militants belonging to the Maute Group and its allies fighting under the black flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized Marawi three weeks ago, leading to a battle with the Philippine armed forces and the biggest test yet of Duterte's leadership during his tumultuous first year in office.

A president who has focused on a deadly anti-drug campaign that has claimed the lives of thousands of Filipinos seems to have been caught unprepared for a militant threat that has been festering in the south for years.

"The government has largely been in denial about the growth of ISIS and affiliated groups," said Zachary M. Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who specialises in Southeast Asian security issues.

"Duterte has been preoccupied with his campaign of gutting the rule of law by using police and other security forces for the extrajudicial killing of drug pushers."

Government forces have been unable to dislodge the militants despite deploying ground troops and bombing the city of 200,000 people from the air.

More than 200 people have been killed, including 24 civilians, 58 soldiers and police officers, and at least 138 militants, according to the Philippine military.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled, and much of the city center lies in ruins. The military says that it has cleared 90 per cent of the city but that militants remain in three neighborhoods in the center. Analysts say the military has less experience fighting on an urban battlefield, where the militants are mixed in with hundreds of civilians.

Duterte has declared 60 days of martial law for the southern island of Mindanao, which includes Marawi and his hometown, Davao City. He has twice set deadlines for troops to retake Marawi, the country's largest predominantly Muslim city, but each deadline has passed with the battle still raging.

On Friday, Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla predicted that the government would retake Marawi by Monday, Philippines Independence Day.

On Saturday, 13 Philippine marines were killed in a clash with militants there.

The militants' seizure of the city, a bold attempt to establish an ISIS caliphate in South-east Asia, marks a significant advance for the Middle East-based terrorist group as well as an apparent reordering of the militant threat in the southern Philippines.

For the first time, it puts the Philippines on the map with failed states such as Libya and Afghanistan as places where ISIS allies have sought to seize territory for a caliphate, giving the group another regional flash point in its effort to spread its influence globally.

The ISIS has urged fighters who cannot reach Syria to join the "jihad" in the Philippines instead, said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.

Fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Chechnya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia were among those killed in the battle for Marawi.

Mindanao has long been a hotbed of insurgencies, with numerous armed groups operating outside government control. Until the siege at Marawi, the best-known internationally was Abu Sayyaf, an ostensibly Islami militant group that specialised in kidnapping for ransom, nearly single-handedly turning South-east Asia into the world's piracy capital, edging out the Horn of Africa.

The Marawi siege also heralds the rise of Isnilon Hapilon, a longtime leader of Abu Sayyaf who had grown more ideologically minded over the years.

Last year, Hapilon, 51, was named by the ISIS as its emir in South-east Asia. Previously based on the island of Basilan, he is on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists, and the United States has offered a US$5 million reward for his capture.

Various factions have come together behind Hapilon, notably the Maute Group, led by the brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute. Educated in the Middle East, the Mautes are based in the Marawi area and recently accepted Hapilon's leadership as emir.

The Mautes are believed responsible for bombing a market in Davao City in September that killed 15.

Duterte is the first president from Mindanao, and he ran last year as the candidate who could bring peace to the region. The bombing of his hometown may have inspired his angry challenge to the Mautes in December.

"It's the usual Duterte brand of bravado," said Roilo Golez, a former national security adviser to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who left office in 2010. "It's a way of intimidating the opposition. It works most of the time."

It hasn't with the Islami in Mindanao.

After a clash between his military and Abu Sayyaf in April, Duterte suggested that the way to stop the militants was to eat them.

"Make me mad," he taunted. "Get me a terrorist. Give me salt and vinegar. I will eat his liver."

In May, the Philippine military got a tip that Hapilon had arrived in Marawi to join up with the Maute brothers. When soldiers raided the house where Hapilon was believed to be, hoping to capture him and claim the US$5 million reward, they were surprised to find dozens of well-armed militants arrayed against them.

A video later recovered by the military and published by The Associated Press shows the militant leaders plotting their takeover of Marawi days before the military learned of Hapilon's presence there. Hundreds of fighters who had gathered in preparation for seizing the city quickly put their plan into effect, burning schools and churches, taking hostages and taking over central Marawi.

Duterte's declaration of martial law helped lead to the capture of Cayamora Maute, the father of the Maute brothers, along with other family members Tuesday at a military checkpoint in Davao City.

Some fear that the temporary martial law order in Mindanao could be expanded nationwide, an idea Duterte has openly toyed with so that he could use the military in his anti-drug campaign.

"There is a sense of dread and fear that this will build support for martial law," said Richard Javad Heydarian, a political analyst and author of the forthcoming book "Duterte's Rise." "This could strengthen the feeling of isolation by the Muslim minority."

Muslims make up only about 5 per cent of the country's population overall but a larger proportion, estimated at 20 to 40 per cent, on Mindanao.

Historic grievances among the Muslim Moro people there, widespread poverty and large lawless areas have helped create an opportunity for ISIS. A peace process pursued by Duterte's predecessor, President Benigno Aquino III, faltered in 2015 and has remained deadlocked under Duterte.

"It was not the spread of ISIS in Iraq and Syria that fuelled ISIS cells in the Philippines, but the collapse of the peace process," said Abuza, the National War College professor.

The growing threat in the south will most likely compel Duterte to improve his relations with the United States, a process that had already begun with the election of President Donald Trump.

Duterte has raged against the United States for daring to criticise his anti-drug campaign and, when President Barack Obama was in office, called for a "separation" from Washington.

But Trump has shown a willingness to overlook the killings and has praised Duterte for doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem," according to a transcript of a call between the two leaders.

Leaders of the Philippines armed forces prevailed on Duterte not to reduce military cooperation, including a long-standing US programme to provide training, equipment and intelligence to fight terrorism.

Since 2001, the United States has maintained a rotating force of 50 to 100 troops in the southern Philippines to combat Abu Sayyaf.

US Special Forces are assisting the Philippine military in Marawi, the US Embassy said Friday, although officials would not provide further details.

"Our military relationship with the Philippines remains robust and multifaceted," said Emma Nagy, a spokeswoman for the embassy in Manila.

"US Special Forces have been providing support and assistance in the southern Philippines for many years, at the request of several different Filipino administrations."

If the battle in Marawi ends Monday, as the military hopes, the rebellion in the south is still far from over. The audacity of the rebel takeover, even if it ultimately fails, will probably draw recruits from across the region, including members of other Islamic militants groups still disaffected and dissatisfied with a moribund peace process.

"If Duterte doesn't deal with that, then this whole problem is going to fester for a very long time," Abuza said. The "ungoverned space" on Mindanao, he said, "is a regional security threat, not just a Philippine security threat."
 
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BREAKING: Duterte did NOT approach US for military assistance in Philippines
ADAM GARRIE
Yesterday, Reuters broke a story calming that the US has agreed to a Philippine request to assist Philippines in the war against ISIS, a story confirmed by both a military spokesman for Philippines and the United States. The story has now been directly contradicted by Philippines President Duterte, also according to Reuters. Duterte claims that he “never approached U.S”.

Duterte further stated,
“I am not aware of that (any request for US assistance) until they (US forces) arrived”.


This could likely mean that elements of the Philippine military have gone rogue and requested assistance from the United States, which America confirmed it is giving, without the permission of the Philippine President.

If this escalates, it could mean that the United States has decided to take matters into its own hands along with elements of the Philippine military. This represents a deeply dangerous and undemocratic precedent that could be developing in Philippines.

READ MORE: CONFIRMED: US enters fight against ISIS in Philippines
http://theduran.com/breaking-duterte-not-approach-us-military-assistance-philippines/
 
CONFIRMED: US enters fight against ISIS in Philippines
ADAM GARRIE
The Philippine military has confirmed that the United States has started to offer limited support to President Rodrigo Duterte’s battle with ISIS.

Duterte had said that the US is unreliable as an ally insofar as they impose ideological conditions as a prerequisite for any kind of assistance. Duterte contrasted this with Russia and China which operate in a more straightforward and businesslike manner.

The recent announcement of US forces aiding the Philippine struggle against ISIS may largely be due to the fact that Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte seem to have developed a good relationship. Duterte continues to speak positively about Trump in spite of his broader negative views on America’s colonial attitude towards post-colonial Philippines.

Philippine Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera spoke at a press conference in the ISIS besieged city of Marawi and stated,
“They (US forces) are not fighting. They are just providing technical support”.

According to Reuters, the US Embassy in Manila has confirmed that they are supporting the Philippine fight against ISIS at the request of the Philippine government but did not release any further details.

Unlike in Syria or Libya, the United States does have a legal mandate and even a moral one to genuinely help Philippines. However, the dangers of mission creep are ever present.

President Duterte’s opposition have been trying to remove him from office after questioning his decision to put the southern Philippine island of Mindanao under martial law. Opposition leaders, many from the Liberal Party of Philippines tend to take a much more traditional view of Philippines as a US ally/dependant than does Duterte who has engaged in historic positive bilateral relations with both China and Russia.

There remains a danger that the United States could co-opt forces still loyal to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and use them as ‘moderate rebels’ who fight ISIS on behalf of their own local interests as well as America’s wider geo-political interests which are keen not to let Philippines slip out of the American orbit and into the Chinese sphere of influence.

That being said, MILF has engaged in a ceasefire with the government in Manila dating back to 2014. The ceasefire still generally holds and furthermore, unlike his neo-liberal and right-wing opponents, President Duterte had promised autonomy to Muslim regions of southern Philippines from which Duterte (whose background is Roman Catholic) himself hails.

It is important for Duterte to make sure that Islamist groups in southern Philippines remain focused on doing any future deals directly with Manila in exchange for participation in the united front against ISIS which Duterte has proposed. There exists a manifest danger of such groups working with the United States to unilaterally re-shape the political sovereignty of Philippines.

Although the situation in Philippines is not yet as internationalised as that in Syria, there remains a danger that the US could seek to use the crisis as leverage against Duterte’s sovereignty minded policies which remain highly popular among Philippine voters.

In this sense Philippines has a more fortunate geographical disposition than SYria. Syria shares borders with multiple hostile countries including Turkey, Israel and Jordan. The often unsafe border with Lebanon and the at times open border with ISIS controlled Iraq have made things difficult for Syria during its long war against terrorism.

For Philippines, because ISIS is for now limited to the island of Mindanao, a Philippine naval blockade could help to prevent ISIS fighters from making the journey to Philippines from neighbouring states with a small but significant radical Salafist population, Indonesia in particular.

Philippines needs support from its allies and partners, but one must always be cautious of the kind of military support which the United States tends to give. There tends to be a great deal of extra baggage that accompanies this support and President Duterte is well aware of this. There is only so much that Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte’s good personal relationship can do to change this long term historical trend.
http://theduran.com/confirmed-us-enters-fight-isis-philippines/
 
Tsk tsk a worrisome act by the AFP, an ominous sign of what might come in the future

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Duterte: I did not know of US help in Marawi conflict beforehand

June 11,2017 INQUIRER.NET

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – President Duterte said on Sunday he did not know beforehand that the US military has been helping the Armed Forces of the Philippines fight the Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf in Marawi City.

“I am not aware of that, but under Martial Law, I gave the power to the defense department,” the President said, referring to the Department of Defense. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was tapped by Duterte as martial law administrator shortly after he declared martial law in the entire Mindanao on May 23, 2017.

At one point in his public speech, Duterte indicated what he knew so far: that US soldiers have been helping in the battles, but the Department of Defense later told reporters in a press conference that not one US soldier was involved in the combat.

In his speech at a public event in Cagayan de Oro City on Sunday, Duterte said he would prefer that US soldiers were not involved in the campaign but it was the military’s decision to tap them.

Asked if it did not affect his independent foreign policy agenda, the President said his quarrel was not with the American people at all but only with former President Barack Obama and the US State department.

“As far as (President Donald) Trump is concerned, he’s my friend,” he said.

Defense officials on Sunday reiterated not one US soldier was directly involved in fighting Islamic State-inspired gunmen in Marawi City, saying American participation was limited to technical aspects, such as intelligence gathering and training.

In a press briefing in Cagayan de Oro on Sunday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the deployment of the P3 Orion surveillance plane by US military advisers stationed in Zamboanga City has been going on even before fighting in Marawi erupted last May 23.

Lorenzana said military advisers based in the military’s Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) in Zamboanga City have been providing training to Filipino soldiers, and for the past weeks gave some pieces of equipment to the Philippine Marines involved in the operation to flush out Islamist Maute and Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Marawi.
 
"At the request of the government of the Philippines."

That doesn't exactly fit the narrative of "the US is trying to destabilize the Philippines" that so many are attempting to peddle here.:lol:
after putting foreign fighter into Philippine and put on a good show of being helpful trying to rid of the fighter.

I can bet the 10 Philippine soldier killed by friendly fire is result of the poor grid point directed by US surveillance plane. More or less show the competency of US. :enjoy:
 
after putting foreign fighter into Philippine and put on a good show of being helpful trying to rid of the fighter.

I can bet the 10 Philippine soldier killed by friendly fire is result of the poor grid point directed by US surveillance plane. More or less show the competency of US. :enjoy:

Hopefully the US won't accidentally hit Duterte's residence or air-drop batches of military supplies to terrorist held areas. After all, as per Trump's revelations, the US has founded the ISIS. There must be lots of communications channels between the two.
 
Philippine troops raise flag as bombs fall on Islamist-held city
Nabban Haque
Published at 05:25 PM June 12, 2017
Philippine-soldier-flag-independence-day-EDITED-jun12-2017-690x450.jpg

In the latest casualties, 13 Philippine Marines were killed on Friday in ferocious street-to-street battles

Embattled Philippine troops struggling to drive Islamist militants from a southern city raised the national flag for Independence Day on Monday, in a tearful ceremony dedicated to the scores killed during the conflict.

Thousands of Philippine soldiers, advised by US special forces, are locked in fierce combat with hundreds of insurgents who overran Marawi city on May 23, flying black flags of the Islamic State (IS) group and using up to 2,000 civilians as human shields.

As gunfire rang out and planes flew bombing raids to pummel districts of the largely abandoned city, a crowd of soldiers and teary-eyed officials, firemen, police and clerks gathered outside a nearby government building to raise the Philippine flag.

“This is dedicated to soldiers who offered their lives to implement our mission in Marawi city,” said Colonel Jose Maria Cuerpo, commander of an army brigade fighting in Marawi.

The annual ceremony marks the anniversary of an armed revolt against Spanish colonial rule. The Philippines actually won independence from the United States in 1946.

All military camps and government agencies will fly their flags at half-mast on Tuesday in honour of the troops killed in Marawi, said military spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo.

In the latest casualties, 13 Philippine Marines were killed on Friday in ferocious street-to-street battles.
Philippine-govt-employees-independence-day-EDITED-jun12-2017-1024x675.jpg

Local government employees cry as the Lano Del Sur Vice Governor Mamintal Adiong (not seen) gives a speech at the Lanao Del Sur provincial capital of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao on June 12, 2017. Embattled Philippine troops struggling to force out Islamist militants from a southern city raised the national flag for Independence Day on June 12, in a tearful ceremony dedicated to the scores killed during the conflict AFP

Fighting in the city has left a total of 58 soldiers and police and more than 20 civilians dead, the military said, estimating that almost 200 militants have been killed.

The last time the Philippine security forces sustained large numbers of deaths was in 2015, when 44 police commandos were killed in a botched attempt to capture a Malaysian Islamist militant in the same region.

Tens of thousands have fled Marawi, which is the largely Catholic country’s most important Muslim city, since the military says its troops unexpectedly interrupted plans by the fighters to take over Marawi in a spectacular event to show that IS had arrived in the Philippines.

President Rodrigo Duterte has said the militant attack was part of a wider plot by IS to establish a base in the southern region of Mindanao, and has declared martial law there to quell the threat.

But the military has struggled to defeat the heavily-armed gunmen, who have used hostages and pre-existing bomb-proof tunnels to entrench their positions.

“As you know, the target was to liberate Marawi today, June 12, but… you can see how complex the problem is and how many new developments there are,” Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told reporters at the annual flag-raising ceremony in a Manila park.

On Sunday the region’s military chief, Lieutenant-General Carlito Galvez, told a news conference the fight would be “most difficult, deadly, bloody, and it will take days and months to clear up”.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said a captured militant had told the military the IS chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had directly “incited” the gunmen to attack the city of 200,000.

As the conflict intensifies, the US embassy in Manila said on Saturday American forces were providing assistance to the Filipino troops, although it declined to give details for security reasons.

The two countries are bound by a 1951 mutual defence treaty, though Duterte has tried to steer the Philippines away from US influence since he became president last year.

Duterte skipped the Independence Day flag-raising in Manila on Monday as he was “extremely tired” after visiting wounded soldiers from Marawi the previous day, his spokesman said.

http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/2017/06/12/philippine-troops-raise-flag/
 

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