Local Frontlines of Globalized Islamic States Network: The Emerging War Arena for the Filipino Soldier 

(This piece written by Dr. Gail T. Ilagan was first published in the book, “Transfiguring Mindanao: A Mindanao Reader,” edited by Jose Jowel Canuday and Joselito Sescon, published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press and launched on June 22, 2022 in Davao City. See Part V on “Mediating Truths, Contested Communities, Making Peace.” Permission to share this with MindaNews readers was granted by the Ateneo University Press)

The Emergence of Violent Extremism in Mindanao

Muslims make up about a quarter of the world’s population with most Muslim countries located in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The Commission of Muslim Filipinos records a total of 11 million Muslims, representing almost 10 percent of the Philippine population (US Department of State 2004). More than half of them make their home in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Most Filipino Muslims have found a way to practice Islam, while thriving and living harmoniously with others in a world characterized by cultural, religious, and political diversity. 

Violent extremists are rare among Muslim Filipinos. However, it does not take a lot of them to cause a scale of destruction such as was seen in the aftermath of the 2017 Marawi Siege. DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) Secretary Rolando Joselito D. Bautista, a retired general who served as ground commander during the Marawi Siege, estimates that there were only 2,000 ISIS-aligned forces responsible for the occupation of the only Islamic city in the country. 

Air strikes continue to pound Marawi City on June 29, 2017, more than a month after the Maute Group seized the city. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO

The ideology of violent extremism is rooted in the desire of a few Islamic hardliners to unite the 1.8 billion strong global Muslim population under a caliphate ruled by Shariah law. This hardline thinking is an extreme interpretation of the Shariah – or “The Way’’ – which is derived from the religious precepts of the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad. The Shariah governs religious rituals as well as aspects of daily life in Islam. These hardliners loathe that Muslims the world over experience oppression and discrimination for their conservative ways. They believe that the decadent Western influence in most modern states today force the global Muslim people to live in a blasphemous world. They therefore desire to wrest a territory where the Shariah law can impose religious, political and military authority over all Muslims. Thus, they call on all devout Muslims to join in their jihad, or holy war, and take up arms for the establishment of a true ummah or Islamic community. 

As a guide to personal conduct, the Shariah is interpreted in various ways by different Muslim sects. Unlike the majority of moderate Muslims in Mindanao who interpret jihad to mean waging a spiritual battle to overcome the imperfect self, violent extremists adopt a literal interpretation. For them it means to wage an armed battle against the enemies of Allah – the non-believers who include those who call themselves Muslims but who do not adhere to very strict Islamic laws. Thus, even other Muslims are not safe from violent extremists, as the merest questionable conduct can be subject to brutal punishment for perceived violations of the Shariah. 

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is just one among the international terror groups that desire to re-install a caliphate in a territory where their idea of a true Islamic community could be realized. In 2014, ISIS named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “leader of Muslims everywhere” and unleashed its brand of brutal violence in its bid to carve a caliphate in the contiguous regions of northern Iraq and eastern Syria. As city after city fell, their hapless residents were subjugated by the ISIS jihadists’ bloody reign of terror. By May 2015, ISIS had wrested control of over 100,000 square kilometers of territory and had established its headquarters in the city of Raqqa in Syria. ISIS forces also occupied the cities of Mosul and Baghouz, among others.

Using sophisticated propaganda tactics propagated mainly through social media, ISIS attracted foreign jihadists from Europe, the United States, Africa, and Asia who joined the jihad. Among those who heeded the call were young Muslims from Mindanao, such as Zamboanga native Mohammad Reza Kiram who was 27 years old when he traveled to Syria and appeared in a violent ISIS video uploaded on YouTube. On various social media channels, the sleek portrayal of an Islamic utopia that the ISIS was carving also attracted women and girls as young as 14 years old to come and be “the brides of jihad”. They escaped from home and traveled half a world away to marry ISIS fighters and bear their children. 

Wherever the ISIS gained territorial control, their fighters used armed violence to immediately depose local rulers and terrorize the populace. Women judged to have committed adultery were publicly stoned to death. Women were forced to wear black robes that left only their eyes uncovered. Schools that catered to girls were burned to the ground. The ISIS forces also tore down monuments, museums, and centuries-old cultural sites. Public hangings, beheadings of international journalists and humanitarian workers, and other forms of torture and execution became commonplace in the areas that fell to ISIS hands. Shocking videos would be uploaded on YouTube and other popular Internet sites as the world watched in growing horror. 

In response, the US and its allies formed a coalition force to support local resistance efforts to stem the ISIS invasion and reclaim the territory that the jihadists had taken over. This required heavy armed fighting that left many ISIS strongholds totally razed to the ground by airstrikes and heavy bombardment. Under the unrelenting attacks, the ISIS expansion lost ground. 

By 2016, ISIS territory was shrinking in Iraq and Syria. Intelligence sources say that ISIS was looking at Southeast Asia to regroup. Among its choices, the region of Mindanao seemed to be most appealing because of its porous maritime boundaries and the safe haven that local extremist groups could provide. One such local extremist group was the Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) that had pledged allegiance to ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in June 2014. In 2016, al-Baghdadi accepted the Abu Sayyaf’s pledge and appointed ASG commander Isnilon Hapilon as the ISIS’ emir in Southeast Asia. Hapilon and his soldiers traveled soon after to Marawi where they were embraced by the Maute Group, as well as other local terrorist groups that shared the ISIS’ aspiration. 

Triggering the Marawi Crisis 

The Marawi Crisis was ignited in the early afternoon of 23 May 2017 when security forces tried to arrest Hapilon in Barangay Basak Malutlut in Marawi City. It was two days before the Muslim holiday of Eid’l Fitr. Intelligence sources would later reveal that the ISIS-inspired groups intended to mark Eid’l Fitr by taking over the only Islamic city in the Philippines and declaring it ISIS territory. At the time when the security team was sent to Marawi with the warrant of arrest, they were unaware that Hapilon’s forces were positioned in the adjoining buildings, ready to defend their leader. The arresting team immediately came under heavy fire as soon as they entered the narrow street where Hapilon’s quarters were located. 

As the barrage of fire erupted from Basak Malutlut, many sleeper cells of ISIS supporters emerged from hiding in various parts of the city, firing their guns and waving black ISIS flags. Some drove around the city calling on the people of Marawi to come out and join them. They attacked the City Hall, liberated the inmates at the City Jail, and burned the Catholic church. They also took control of many school campuses and the Amai Pakpak hospital. Alarmed, the residents fled or hid wherever they could. The fragile peace and order situation in Marawi deteriorated very quickly on that very first day, only to get worse in the weeks to come. It would take five long months for the government to neutralize the extremists and rid Marawi of them. 

In the digital age, news of the Marawi Siege reached an international audience almost as soon as it started. Half the world away at the United States War College in Pennsylvania, then-Colonel Romeo S. Brawner Jr. watched in dread as The Filipino Channel reported the takeover of the Amai Pakpak Hospital by ISIS fighters. As more reports of the alarming developments happening in Marawi emerged, it became apparent to Brawner that the disturbance would drag on. He resolved on that very first day, “When I get back to the Philippines, I will volunteer to serve there.” 

Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., during ceremonies installing him as commander of the 103rd Infantry “Haribon” Brigade in Marawi City on 18 December 2018. MindaNews photo by RICHEL V. UMEL

To Brawner, it came as no surprise that local sympathizers of ISIS were finally coming out in the open. Having served three years as Chief of Staff of the Philippine Army’s 6th Infantry Division based in Awang, Maguindanao before he left for year-long study at the US War College, he had an inkling of the growing recruitment into local violent extremist groups that claimed affiliation with the ISIS. In 2015, for example, he revealed that the 6ID had raided a training camp in the Kalamansig-Lebak area and discovered guns, bomb implements, and ID cards of young men and women. Included in the haul were black ISIS flags. In the months that followed, similar paraphernalia were turned up by military raiding teams from their forays into clandestine camps of suspected violent extremist groups. Many such camps suddenly sprouted in Basilan, Maguindanao, Sarangani, and the Lanao Provinces. 

Fearing that any public acknowledgment of ISIS presence would be interpreted by foreign jihadists as an invitation to come over and link up with the local extremist groups, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) downplayed the ISIS influence that was evident in the materials recovered from the raids. Until August of 2016, it was still the official line of the AFP that ISIS had no presence in the country. Instead, the security sector designated these extremist organizations as local terrorist groups because of their demonstrated readiness to target civilians with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Eleven students from the Central Mindanao State University in Bukidnon died when the ASG bombed a commuter bus in Bukidnon on 9 December 2014. On 2 September 2016, another ISIS-affiliated group claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Davao Night Market outside of the Ateneo de Davao University that killed 15 people and wounded more than 70 others. 

One of these identified local terrorist organizations was the Maute Group that attacked the town of Butig in Lanao del Norte in February 2016, displacing most of the town’s 17,000 residents. The ensuing battle to repulse them resulted in the death of three soldiers and around 20 of the enemy forces. The Maute Group succeeded in occupying the town for three days and raising the black ISIS flag at the town hall before the military could chase them out. Brawner recalls that the soldiers who were killed and wounded in the 10-day fighting in Butig were evacuated by helicopter to his base at the 6ID headquarters in Awang. The wounded brought with them tales of the uncommonly lethal capability of the Maute fighters. The fighting, they said, was so fierce that schools and mosques in Butig were totally destroyed. 

A soldiers walks past a bombed-out mosque in Butig, Lanao del Sur after government troops retook Butig town from the Maute group. MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo
A soldier walks past a bombed-out mosque in Butig, Lanao del Sur after government troops retook Butig town from the Maute group in December 2016. MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo

But after two weeks, the Maute Group failed in its bid to occupy the town of Butig. Its remaining fighters scampered away and went underground. The military gave chase, believing that the terrorists were regrouping and bonding with other ISIS-inspired groups to mount another attempt to wrest territory and claim it for ISIS. Remembering this harbinger of the Marawi Siege three years later, Brawner avers, “The Marawi Siege was just waiting to happen. ISIS was already here.” 

Indeed, they were. The ISIS-inspired Maute Group along with members of the ASG from Basilan and other local terrorist groups were flushed out from Basak Malutlut in May 2017, just a few days before they could execute a plan to take Marawi City on Eid’l Fitr and claim it as a wilayat or province of the ISIS. 

The Maute Group 

Unlike the Abu Sayyaf that had been around since 1991 kidnapping Christians and foreigners; bombing churches, passenger liners, and train stations; and engaging the military in a long-running deadly game of cat-and-mouse in Basilan and Sulu, the Maute Group in Lanao del Sur was a relative newcomer. Created by Maranao brothers Abdullah and Omar Maute in 2012, it was originally called Khalifa Islamiah Mindanao (KIM). Later, it adopted several other names, such as Islamic State of Lanao, Daulat Ul IslamiyaDaulah Islamiyah (or Dawlah Islamiya), Islamic State in Southern Philippines, Islamic State – East Asia, IS-Ranao, and Lions of IS Ranao – names that evoked an aspiration for an Islamic caliphate. To prevent confusion on how to call it, the government forces referred to it as the Maute Group, after the founding brothers Abdullah and Omar Maute. In April 2014, the Maute Group was among the very first groups to declare support for the ISIS cause (Ilagan 2017). Initially, it had set its eyes on claiming the Maute brothers’ hometown of Butig as its seat, but the government soldiers kept thwarting their plan (Yabes 2019). 

Since its founding, the Maute Group was bonding and conducting cross- training with other ISIS-inspired groups in Mindanao and Southeast Asia. It helped bring in Indonesian and Malaysian bomb-making experts to the country and secretly moved them to and from clandestine camps in Mindanao to train recruits to the ISIS cause. It provided materials for other groups to bomb major cities in Mindanao in 2016. It is said that the Maute Group even sent fighters to the ISIS war in the Middle East. 

Meanwhile, abroad, faced with the unrelenting attack of the US-led coalition forces, ISIS was losing ground in Iraq and Syria. With renewed vigilance at the borders, it was becoming harder for its foreign recruits to come and join the fighting. Starting in 2016, its propaganda arm was encouraging jihadists everywhere to converge in the Philippines if they could not get to the Middle East. Evidently, this call was heeded by extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, among others, as dozens of foreigners would eventually show up among the dead ISIS fighters in Marawi (Dancel 2019). 

The Marawi Crisis 

On 23 May 2017, government forces attempted to serve a warrant of arrest to Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon who was verified to be hiding in an apartment in Basak Malutlut. The arresting team, however, was caught by surprise when Hapilon’s defenders emerged from adjoining buildings and fired at them. Some even went out into the street to swarm the arresting team. The government troops realized too late that they were outnumbered and needed rescuing. However, the support tanks had difficulty negotiating the sharp turns in the narrow streets, significantly delaying the rescue of the embattled soldiers. 

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city that had been caught unaware, the ISIS- Maute fighters killed a policeman on the road and hijacked a firetruck which they used to drive all over the city calling the residents to join the jihad. They burned the City Jail, released 107 inmates, and looted its armory. They also burned the Catholic church and took the parish priest and some church workers hostage. They occupied the campus of the Mindanao State University and Dansalan College. They took over Amai Pakpak Hospital to ensure medical attention for their wounded. About 500 black-clad fighters also attacked Camp Ranao, the headquarters of the 103rd Infantry Brigade, but they were unsuccessful in breaching its defenses. By nightfall, the whole city was in lockdown. From Russia where he was on a state visit, President Rodrigo Duterte immediately declared a state of martial law in the whole of Mindanao (Proclamation No. 216, s. 2017) and flew back to the country. 

Marawi City jail on fire. 23 May 2017. Photo courtesy of CMYP Online News

Marawi residents flooded out of the city, congesting the roads leading to Iligan and Cagayan de Oro. Some who remained in their homes would eventually be taken hostage by the marauding ISIS-Maute bands that were looting for guns and gold. Some unlucky residents who fled on foot were executed by trigger-happy jihadists when they could not recite Islamic prayers. For the jihadists, this was proof that the victim was not a devout Muslim and was therefore an enemy of Allah. 

As more government troops were poured into Marawi, the fighting became more intense. The ISIS militants retreated across the Mapandi Bridge and held off the troops for over a month. They sniped at soldiers from across the bridge, thwarting all attempts of the soldiers to get across. With the government forces temporarily held at bay, the extremists were free to loot the abandoned city for guns and valuables and get their hostages to make improvised bombs that they laid as booby traps. 

It was only on July 20 that the soldiers succeeded in reclaiming Mapandi bridge. By that time, the death count from the intense fighting hovered at around 400 militants, 50 civilians, and close to a hundred soldiers, eleven of whom were unfortunately killed by friendly fire in early June (Agence France-Press 2017). President Duterte had by then extended his declaration of martial law until the end of the year, citing the need for faster rehabilitation of Marawi after this “newly evolving type of urban warfare” would have ended (Cayabyab 2017). 

Crossing the Mapandi Bridge, the soldiers found that they had to fight for every inch of territorial advance. Many soldiers fell from explosive booby traps and accurate sniping by the militants. In many instances, the troops had to halt their advance to rescue and escort trapped civilians to safer ground. Across the wide expanse of city blocks, the soldiers doggedly pushed their advantage, recovering new ground one building at a time and pushing the militants towards Lake Lanao. This required heavy bombardment to chase away snipers and safely trigger the explosives that the extremists had left behind to kill and maim pursuing troops. 

Damaged buildings loom in the background as Philippine Marines backed by a V300 armored vehicle cross the Baloi Bridge in Barangay Mapandi in Marawi City on (Aug. 30, 2017, 100 days since the Islamic State-inspired Maute group started a siege that has made the city a ghost town. Government troops recaptured the bridge from the militants late last month. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO

By September, the troops had established a wide net that allowed them to employ a strategy of constriction, pushing the remaining militants to gather in a lakeside building. Still, it would not be until 16 October that the government could confirm the killing of militant leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute. The next day, the president declared the Battle of Marawi to be over, although it would take a week before the Department of Defense would terminate military offensives. All in all, it took the government troops five months to neutralize the militant threat in Marawi (Army Beacon 2018). 

Urban Warfare as a New Arena for the Filipino Soldier 

From the extensive news coverage of the military campaign against ISIS in the Middle East, the world had seen the protracted war and the scale of destruction it took to liberate the cities that the violent extremists took over. It took the US- led military coalition more than eight months to rid the city of Mosul in Iraq of ISIS occupation (Spencer & Geroux n.d.), and three years to win back the Syrian city of Raqqa. After more than 4,450 airstrikes and countless individual bombs, shells and missiles pounding buildings to the ground, Raqqa lay in total ruin (Malsin 2017). ISIS left these cities only when there was nowhere left for them to hide. Mosul and Raqqa were totally devastated, their inhabitants having fled long before the last ISIS warrior surrendered his ground. 

The urban jungle consists of city buildings made of steel and concrete that provide ready-made defense structures, fortified bunkers, and snipers’ nests from which fighters can defend against attack. To flush the invaders out, all possible hiding places had to be destroyed and rendered unusable for that purpose. Thus, it appears that whichever city ISIS needed to be chased away from, the attacking force had no choice but to bomb everything in order to save it. 

Fighting in Raqqa, Mosul, Baghouz, and the other cities the ISIS temporarily controlled taught its fighters creative techniques of urban warfare that would confound conventional military forces. This knowledge was their initial advantage in Marawi, as the Filipino soldier is generally not trained for military operations in urban terrain. Because the AFP had been fighting the guerilla communist New People’s Army (NPA) for over 50 years, Filipino soldiers are trained for jungle fighting and have gotten so good at it that the Philippine Army’s elite Scout Rangers are recognized as the best jungle fighters in the world. 

Army soldiers hide behind a Simba armored personnel carrier while crossing the corner of Evangelista and Lustre streets in Barangay Santa Catalina, Zamboanga City on 13 September 2013 following the attack four days earlier by members of the Moro National Liberation Front loyal to Chairman Nur Misuari. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO

However, the AFP did get a sneak peek at what urban warfare would look like in September 2013 when rogue elements of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) occupied four barangays in Zamboanga City. General Carlito Galvez, the former AFP Chief of Staff, saw in Zamboanga the face of future warfare. Lessons learned in Zamboanga made the AFP realize that this kind of warfare needed a light reaction force trained to clear city streets and buildings, able to neutralize booby traps that the enemy planted, and proficient at close quarter combat. Thus, under the guidance of Scout Ranger Colonel Teodoro Llamas, the Philippine Army expanded its light reaction capability to a regiment from the mere brigade it was before the 2013 Zamboanga siege (ORC 2018). This Light Reaction Regiment was among the first Army units sent to reinforce the government forces in Marawi in late May 2017. 

The Marawi terrain, however, was significantly different from the Zamboanga war arena. For one, the Zamboanga City crisis was confined to four coastal barangays while the Marawi City crisis covered almost all of the city’s 96 barangays, with the 24 barangays located in and around the former city center being the most affected areas. Before the ISIS groups caused the strife in Marawi, the Islamic city was bustling with commerce, opulent homes, imposing mosques, big schools, and government installations that crowded the central district near the picturesque Lake Lanao. 

In Zamboanga, the area occupied by the rogue MNLF forces in 2013 generally featured small houses constructed from light materials, including flimsy dwellings built on wooden stilts along the coast. In the light of day, the MNLF rebels would mask their movements by burning houses, using the smoke to cover their movements within the battle space. 

The Marawi terrain, on the other hand, was not unlike Mosul or Raqqa. The buildings were of thick, solid concrete, two or three storeys high. In addition, rebel location was difficult to monitor because the Maute fighters moved undetected through networks of tunnels and underground berths that exited to the open waters of the Lanao Lake (ORC 2018). 

Because the Maranao from Marawi are mostly traders, they prefer to keep their cash, jewelry, and other valuables within reach in their homes. Traditionally, the protection of these family assets is a family responsibility, and so it is not uncommon for homes to have three or four firearms for family security. Many of these guns were left in the homes when the residents evacuated. Unprotected, the homes became targets for looting by the militants. In particular, the firearms were harvested for inclusion in the militants’ arsenal. The residents’ cash and jewelry were also secured to fill the Maute Group’s war chest. 

Army Scout rangers take cover behind a military truck after Maute gunmen fired shots at them in Marawi City on 27 May 2017. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO

The Maranao clannishness extends to the protection of extended family members. Personal disagreements between members of different families sometimes escalate to interclan armed violence. This is when the guns would come out. The sound of guns going off is so normal in Marawi that when heavy firing broke out in Basak Malutlut on 23 May 2017, many Marawi residents were not at all alarmed. They dismissed it as just another violent confrontation among local residents. They thought they just needed to take cover inside their homes and wait for the disturbance to stop so they could again safely resume their daily lives. By the time some Maranao realized that this was not the case, the militants had already taken over their city. The residents who were not able to leave got trapped in their own homes. Some decided to stay to protect their homes and property, believing that the government soldiers would soon chase away the perpetrators of violence in the streets. 

According to Brawner, the presence of so many civilians left in the war zone was an added complication for the soldiers. Because soldiers are sworn to protect and preserve civilian life at all cost, they often had to abandon chasing after their quarry when they were met by distraught civilians who needed rescuing. This posed a security problem for the troops because in the war arena, it is difficult for soldiers to distinguish civilians from combatants and enemy sympathizers. 

In late July, when the government troops were finally able to safely cross the Mapandi Bridge, they found that the militants had fortified their sniper roosts, established ambush positions and escape routes, and littered the battle space liberally with creative booby traps for the unsuspecting soldiers. Forced to play in this novel war arena, the soldiers adapted to the unfamiliar strategies dictated by the enemy. Learning came at an overwhelming price. The soldiers paid heavily with each mistake. When the guns were finally silenced in late October, 168 troops had been killed in action, while close to 1,500 soldiers were wounded and maimed by shrapnel or sniper fire (Army Beacon 2018). This casualty number represented more than ten percent of the 12,186 government troops that saw action in Marawi. 

Postscript to Marawi 

Soldiers hope to never see a war like this ever again in their lifetime. However, to aspire for peace, they know they must prepare for war. Marawi showed all potential enemies the advantages of urban warfare. Taking the fight to the cities meant having the advantage of ready-made fortifications, access to resources that can be looted, and the presence of potential civilian hostages to be used as human shields or force multipliers in mounting attacks, gathering intelligence, and preparing weapons, as well as feeding the fighters and caring for the wounded. 

Understanding this, the Operations Research Center of the Philippine Army put together several volumes analyzing the lessons learned from the Marawi Siege and marking points for improving its warfighting capabilities (ORC 2018). This has translated to improvements in the military organization, renewed training for joint operations and other war support services, and the procurement of necessary equipment, to upgrade their capability in neutralizing future urban security threats swiftly and decisively. 

Interviewed three years after the battle of Marawi, Brawner, who now serves as Commandant of Cadets at the Philippine Military Academy, has the responsibility of training future military officers to be adept at this emerging war arena. He opines that there are security experts who believe that the termination of the Marawi Siege did not put an end to the extremist aspiration for the creation of a Muslim caliphate in Southeast Asia. Mindanao remains an attractive option for militants to converge, consolidate, and recruit local fighters. 

In the three years since the clearing of the ISIS-inspired extremist groups from Marawi, small and highly mobile pockets of sleeper cells have emerged in Mindanao every now and then to attack soldiers. These serve as a reminder that the security threat posed by the scattered remnants of the jihadist ideology remains. 

References 

Agence France-Press. 2017. “11 Soldiers Killed by ‘Friendly Fire’ in Marawi. Inquirer.net, 01 June. https://ift.tt/92rTIuB by-friendly-fire-in-marawi. 

Army Beacon Special Edition Issue on Fighting Terrorism: The Marawi Experience. 2018. Taguig City: Philippine Army. 

Cayabyab, Marc Jayson. 2017. “Look: Duterte’s Report to Congress Requesting Martial Law Extension.” Inquirer.net, 19 July. https://ift.tt/wVEQZeO. net/915242/look-dutertes-report-to-congress-requesting-martial-law-extension.

Dancel, Raul. 2019. “Foreign Terrorists in Mindanao Training Suicide Bombers: Philippine Security Officials.” The Straits Times, 23 July. https://www. straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/foreign-terrorists-in-mindanao-training-suicide- bombers-philippine-security-officials. 

Ilagan, Gail Tan. 2017. “Understanding Recruitment to Violent Extremism in Mindanao.” Tambara: A Journal on the Humanities and Social Sciences 34, no. 1. 

Malsin, Jared. 2017. “Raqqa is in Ruins and ISIS in Retreat.” Time, 6 November. https://ift.tt/hkn8cCV. 

ORC (Operations Research Center). 2018. Marawi and Beyond: The Joint Task Force Marawi Story. Taguig City: Philippine Army. 

Spencer, John & Jayson Geroux, (n.d.) “Case study #2: Mosul.” Urban Warfare Case Studies Series. New York: Modern War Institute at West Point. https://mwi. usma.edu/urban-warfare-project-case-study-2-battle-of-mosul/

US Department of State. 2004. “International Religious Freedom Report 2004: Philippines.” 15 September. https://ift.tt/S5tyx8v irf/2004/35425.htm. 

Yabes, Criselda. 2019. “Factors and Forces That Led to the Marawi Debacle.” ABS- CBN News, 20 October. https://ift.tt/9DlMb2W and-forces-that-led-to-the-marawi-debacle. 

(“Transfiguring Mindanao: A Mindanao Reader” has 34 chapters with 44 authors mostly coming from Mindanao covering broad topics from history, social, economic, political, and cultural features of the island and its people. 

The book is divided into six parts: Part I is History, Historical Detours, Historic Memories, Part II is Divergent Religions, Shared Faiths, Consequential Ministries, Part III is Colonized Landscapes, Agricultural Transitions, Economic Disjunctions, Part IV is Disjointed Development, Uneven Progress, Disfigured Ecology, Part V is Mediating Truths, Contested Communities, Making Peace and Part VI is Exclusionary Symbols, Celebrated Values, Multilingual Future.  Edited by Jose Jowel Canuday and Joselito Sescon, this book is a landmark in studies on Mindanao. 

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