Experts warn of Abu ties with IS
JAKARTA—The Islamic State (IS) has attracted support from long-established terror networks, among them, the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, according to terrorism experts who warned that seeming fragmented and ineffectual attacks in the Asian region could turn deadly in the future.
IS released a video in June showing an Indonesian, a Malaysian and a Filipino in Syria acknowledging Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon as the head of IS in Southeast Asia.
“The threat level has risen because IS has shifted focus to build an Islamic state in this region,” said Badrul Hisham Ismail, an analyst with Iman Research, a Malaysian group that studies religion and society.
The Abu Sayyaf has declared allegiance to IS. It professes radical Islamic ideology but is better known for banditry, kidnappings and beheadings.
IS recruitment has become more aggressive and Malaysian militants have joined the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, Hisham said.
Indonesians have also joined the Abu Sayyaf.
“The Islamic State threat has increased across the region but from a relatively low base,” according to Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.
“We are seeing more connections. The likelihood of communications across national boundaries is higher,” she said.
“We need to be open to the possibility both the method and professionalism of attacks could increase,” she added.
According to Jones, the ranks of the Abu Sayyaf, among others, may in the future provide the militants who could train would-be jihadists in bomb making and other skills.
Recent ineffectual attacks by the IS group’s followers in Southeast Asia have shown them to be fragmented and lacking in the expertise that has produced devastating death tolls elsewhere in the world.
But they say the threat from the militants—spread across predominantly Muslim Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines
—should not be underestimated.
There are plenty of signs radicals in the region have been animated by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call for attacks and the group’s ambition to create Southeast Asian provinces of the IS caliphate even as it loses territory in Syria and Iraq. AP
