By RICHARD C. PADDOCK
Philippine soldiers ran for cover to evade sniper fire on Thursday while trying to clear the southern city of Marawi of armed militants, one street at a time. CreditJes Aznar/Getty Images
BANGKOK — An eruption of violence in the southern Philippines and suicide bombings in Indonesia this week highlight the growing threat posed by militant backers of the Islamic State in Southeast Asia.
While the timing of the Jakarta bombings and the fighting on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao appears to be coincidental, experts on terrorism have been warning for months that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has provided a new basis for cooperation among extremists in the region.
“Setbacks in Syria and Iraq have heightened the importance of other theaters for ISIS, and in Southeast Asia, the focus is the Philippines,” said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, based in Jakarta. “ISIS supporters around the region have been urged to join the jihad in the Philippines if they can’t get to Syria, and to wage war at home if they can’t travel at all.”
There is no indication that this week’s violence was directed or coordinated by Islamic State leaders in the Middle East. Still, the attacks posed a test for the authorities in the Philippines and in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, as they confront like-minded extremists who support the creation of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
Clashes in Marawi, a city of about 200,000 on Mindanao, continued for a fourth day on Friday as government forces, using tanks and attack helicopters, tried to dislodge militants from at least two Islamist groups.
The government said it was conducting “surgical airstrikes” to drive out the militants, whose snipers held strategic positions in the city.
The fighting broke out when government forces moved to capture the leader of an Abu Sayyaf faction, Isnilon Hapilon, after he had been spotted in Marawi this week.CreditFBI, via Associated Press
The fighting began on Tuesday after Philippine forces tried to capture Isnilon Hapilon, who has been designated by the Islamic State as its leader in the Philippines. He has long been associated with Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist-oriented kidnap-for-ransom gang that has made millions of dollars by taking hostages and sometimes killing them. The group beheaded a German hostage this year and two Canadians last year. The United States has offered a $5 million reward for Mr. Hapilon’s capture.
In moving to take Mr. Hapilon, the government underestimated the militants’ strength, and the raid went awry. He escaped, and the Islamist forces took over much of the city, setting fire to a cathedral and a hospital and reportedly taking hostages, including a Roman Catholic priest.
The fighting led President Rodrigo Duterte to declare 60 days of martial law for all of Mindanao.
The government reports that more than 40 people have been killed in the fighting, including more than 30 militants, although official figures in the Philippines are notoriously unreliable.
Abu Sayyaf was joined by fighters from the smaller Maute group, which has also staged attacks in the southern Philippines. Both groups have pledged to support the Islamic State.
Underscoring the threat from Islamist militancy, officials said that Indonesians, Malaysians and Singaporeans were fighting in Marawi alongside the local militants, and that six foreign fighters had been killed.
“What’s happening in Mindanao is no longer a rebellion of Filipino citizens,” said Jose Calida, the solicitor general of the Philippines. “It has transmogrified into an invasion by foreign terrorists who heeded the clarion call of the ISIS to go to the Philippines if they find difficulty in going to Iraq or Syria.”
In Jakarta, two suicide bombers attacked police officers Wednesday evening outside the Kampung Melayu bus terminal, a few minutes apart. Three police officers died, along with the two attackers.
Indonesian police officers carried the coffin of Imam Gilang Adinata, one of three officers who were killed on Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Jakarta. CreditAdek Berry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Setyo Wasisto, a spokesman for the Indonesian police, said an identity card found at the scene bore the name of a man with known connections to the Islamic State. The authorities are conducting a DNA test to confirm whether he was one of the bombers, he said.
It was the worst attack by extremists since January 2016, when militants attacked a police post in Jakarta. The police said the attack was organized by an Indonesian member of the Islamic State in Syria. Four civilians were killed in that attack, along with four of the attackers.
About 500 Indonesians have tried to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State, but most were detained before getting there and were sent back to Indonesia. However, some Indonesians who succeeded in joining the Islamic State have played a key role in Syria in coordinating activities in the Philippines and Indonesia, Ms. Jones said.
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In the past, the Indonesian leaders of three groups within the Islamic State competed with one another for resources to organize attacks, she said.
Zachary M. Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who specializes in Southeast Asian security issues, said that the Islamic State was happy to take responsibility for terrorist attacks in other countries, but that he believed the group’s focus on Southeast Asia had diminished as it faced military pressure from the United States and its allies in Iraq and Syria.
“Southeast Asia was never a priority for ISIS,” he said, “and it is hard for me to make the case that fighting for survival in Iraq and Syria, or at least trying not to lose any more territory, that they will stay focused on Southeast Asia.”
The southern Philippines, home to a sizable Muslim population in a mostly Catholic country, has long served as a base for Islamist extremists, including militants from Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries, who have taken refuge there or trained at remote jungle camps.
The aftermath of the explosion at a bus station in Jakarta on Wednesday evening that killed three police officers. Two suicide bombers also died. CreditAntara Foto, via Reuters
Together, Indonesia and the Philippines have nearly 25,000 islands and share a little-patrolled ocean border. Militants can easily travel by boat between the southern Philippines and eastern Indonesia without having to pass through immigration control.
Since the early 2000s, the United States has stationed military advisers in the southern Philippines to aid in the fight against Abu Sayyaf and other Islamic extremists.
Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila, said that Mr. Duterte was under mounting pressure to address the crisis in his home island, Mindanao, and that he may need further assistance from Washington.
“As the first president from Mindanao, public expectations have been and continue to be high,” Mr. Heydarian said. “Counterterrorism will likely dominate his agenda in the short to medium run, and this will likely nudge him to solicit assistance from tried and tested allies like America.”
Rights activists, who are already alarmed by Mr. Duterte’s campaign against drugs that has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people, are concerned that his declaration of martial law will lead to even more killing.
Mr. Duterte has threatened to expand martial law nationwide, an echo of the Marcos dictatorship, when the country lived under martial law for nine years. The period was marked by widespread abuses, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture.
“Duterte’s martial law threatens military abuses in Mindanao that could rival the murderous ‘drug war’ in urban areas,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
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