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Philippines, U.S. cooperate to thwart recruitment of extremists

FORUM Staff

The Philippines and the United States are trying to stem the recruitment of violent extremists in the turbulent southern parts of the island nation with a new three-year counterterrorism program.

The program aims to help local officials identify economic and societal problems that lead to extremism and find ways to address them, U.S. Assistant Secretary Denise Natali of the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations said, according to The Associated Press (AP). U.S. and Australian surveillance aircraft helped Filipino troops stamp out a five-month siege of the southern city of Marawi in 2017. The clashes left more than 1,100 militants dead and hundreds of thousands of residents homeless.

Philippine officials said that despite the military victory, surviving militants have continued their recruitment efforts. (Pictured: The rooftop of a war-torn mosque shows the devastation caused by the siege of Marawi, Philippines.)

“We are focusing on how to prevent further and future incidences of violent extremism and radicalization from occurring so that we don’t have another Marawi ever again,” Natali said, according to AP.

The U.S. in 2018 commissioned a five-month survey in four southern Muslim provinces in the Philippines that identified some issues sparking radicalization. Although some respondents said they backed local jihadists, their support for foreign militant groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida was much lower, AP reported.

Conditions leading to extremist thinking included religious intolerance, dire economic conditions and exposure to violence, the survey showed. “It’s not about religion; it is about living conditions,” Natali said. “There is an economic component to this.”

In recent months, the Philippines has been expanding its training and intelligence-sharing partnerships. In addition to the program with the U.S., the Philippines and the European Union (EU) are working out an agreement on counterterrorism.

Pedro Serrano, deputy secretary-general for common security, defense policy and crisis response at the EU, revealed in May 2019 that the agreement will cover not only terrorism but organized crime.

“We’ve been discussing with Philippine officials this past couple of days possible areas where we could cooperate, including counterterrorism and cyber-related issues,” Serrano said, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper.

The agreement, he said, “speaks clearly about terrorism, the fight against organized crime, about cooperation on peace processes, so this provides us a very good platform to develop cooperation on specific issues.”

Expert training is also on the agenda. The Philippine National Police (PNP) announced in June 2019 that they will be training with Israeli police to develop counterterrorism capabilities.

“They [Israeli police] always see threats every day,” said Gen. Oscar Albayalde, chief of the PNP, according to The Philippine Star newspaper. “That is why they are good when it comes to anti-terrorism operations.”

He said his discussions with Israel focused on the threat posed by Islamic State-inspired militants in the Philippines. “There is no monitored or reported threat to our security, but we remain on active mode against any terror attacks across the country,” he said.

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