Philippines foiled attack staged by ISIL-linked extremists

It came as the military announced plans to create all-Muslim fighting units to bolster efforts to tackle the insurgency in the south.

MANILA // A foiled attack on a central Philippine resort island this week was a kidnapping and bombing mission by at least three extremist groups affiliated with ISIL in one of their most daring terror plots, security officials said on Saturday as the military announced plans to create all-Muslim fighting units to bolster efforts to tackle Islamic insurgency.

The Philippine military initially said that government forces, backed by air strikes, successfully thwarted a kidnapping plot by Abu Sayyaf militants in the island province of Bohol, a popular tourist destination far from the militants’ southern jungle bases.

The Philippines is battling Muslim extremist militants in lawless southern regions, some of whom have pledged allegiance to ISIL.

Three soldiers, a policeman, two villagers and at least four militants, including key Abu Sayyaf commander and spokesman Moammar Askali, were killed in the day-long siege on Tuesday in a hinterland village in Bohol’s Inabanga town. Askali had been implicated in the beheadings of two Canadian hostages last year and a German tourist in February in Sulu’s jungles, officials said.

Military spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla said military and police forces in Bohol thwarted “major terrorist activities” by the militants, who were aiming to divert the military’s focus from intense offensives on the militants’ jungle encampments in southern Sulu province and outlying islands.

According to three security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, three extremist groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIL deployed their leading bombers and fighters, some of whom wore ISIL-style black flag patches, for the Bohol assault.

While considered a key commander and emerging leader of Abu Sayyaf, Askali had also led a hardline Abu Sayyaf faction called the Marakat Ansar Battalion, which is among 10 small armed groups that pledged allegiance to ISIL about three years ago and formed an ISIL-inspired alliance in the southern Philippines. Other Abu Sayyaf commanders have refused to align themselves with the Middle East-based extremist group, according to the officials.

On Saturday, military spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo said that five per cent of all new army applications will be allocated for Muslims with quotas from the Catholic country’s largest religious minority.

Col Arevalo said the Muslim quota, which roughly reflects the proportion of the religious minority in the population, would help the army operate in areas where it has been previously viewed with suspicion by local people.

“Most of our Muslim brothers and sisters perceive the deployment of almost 100 per cent Christian soldiers in their communities as invading or occupational forces,” he said, adding that fellow Muslims would be more aware of religious or cultural “sensitivities”.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse