By Sidney Jones
Information from detained extremists can shed important light on the radicalization and recruitment processes that led a pro-ISIS coalition to take over the city of Marawi in May 2017. Understanding those processes is critical to ongoing prevention efforts. ISIS succeeded in expanding support for violent Islamist extremism in the Philippines. While defeats in the Middle East may lead to diminished support for the ISIS “brand”, there is every reason to believe that the various regional components of the coalition can use some of the same narratives and tactics to regroup and find new sources of support.
The Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) has published a new report based on the interrogation depositions, known as “custodial debriefings”, of seven men arrested in connection with the September 2016 bombing of a night market in Davao city, Mindanao. All were part of a pro-ISIS cell based in Cotabato, and their leader was in regular communication with the men who took over Marawi seven months later. The report, “Post-Marawi Lessons from Detained Extremists in the Philippines”, looks at patterns of recruitment, training, financing and coordination with other parts of the coalition.
The report helps debunk the notion that poverty is the main driver of radicalisation. Many members of the cell were university students, some from well-off and politically well-connected families. It was not lack of opportunity that drove them to ISIS but rather a combination of persuasive preaching from radical clerics and peer pressure from friends and neighbours. The testimonies show the ease with which a group of friends can be transformed into a radical cell if one extremist with a claim to religious knowledge is involved.
Information from the Cotabato cell shows how well integrated at least three parts of the coalition – Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat — were by 2015 in terms of training. Men from these three areas took part in two-week or one month basic training courses, initially in the area of Sultan Kudarat controlled by a group known as Asharul Khilafah Philippines (AKP) and after November 2015 in the area near Marawi controlled by the Maute brothers. One part of the course in 2016 focused on Close Quarter Battle, as though the trainers already had the Marawi takeover in mind. Several from each cohort were asked to stay on for special training in explosives.
The involvement of Muslim converts (Balik Islam) from the northern island of Luzon is striking, as is the speed between conversion and recruitment. Some of the converts recruited were as young as 12. If the networking described for Cotabato is even partly indicative of cells in other cities, then the Philippines needs to worry not just about what happens in Marawi in the next eighteen months: it needs to worry about sleeper cells in Cagayan, General Santos City and Zamboanga, not to mention Manila.
The number of ISIS-linked detainees in custody is surprisingly low, given the length of the Marawi siege and the fact that Mindanao was under martial law the entire time. Only 47 out of some 600 extremists in detention are ISIS-linked and seventeen of them are women, underscoring the importance of learning more about the role of women as propagandists, recruiters, financiers and combatants.
The report notes that more systematic research among detainees could help produce more targeted prevention programs. IPAC recommends four projects in particular: a mapping of university-based recruitment into extremist organisations; a compilation of the narratives used in recruitment; a study of cells in cities such as Cagayan and Zamboanga; and a mapping of mosques known to have hosted regular discussions with pro-ISIS preachers.
Sidney Jones is director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
