Largest Muslim rebel group in Philippines sounds alarm on IS | World News - Hindustan Times
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Largest Muslim rebel group in Philippines sounds alarm on IS

Datu Salibo, Philippines | ByAgence France-Presse
Aug 23, 2017 04:23 PM IST

The Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group, which signed a peace deal in 2014, has warned of the spread of radical militants who back the Islamic State.

The Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group said on Wednesday it had lost 10 fighters in battles to stop a “growing force” of radical militants who support the Islamic State group.

This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wading through a flooded farm on his way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group said it had lost 10 fighters in battles to stop a "growing force" of radical militants who support the Islamic State.(AFP)
This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wading through a flooded farm on his way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group said it had lost 10 fighters in battles to stop a "growing force" of radical militants who support the Islamic State.(AFP)

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is seeking to prevent the militants from gaining a foothold in an area of Mindanao island that the group calls its own, senior rebel leader Mohagher Iqbal told AFP.

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Iqbal said 50 or so militants had pledged allegiance to IS and had ties to gunmen waging a deadly three-month-old battle with government forces in the southern city of Marawi.

“The radical elements are growing as a force,” Iqbal told AFP by telephone.

An AFP video journalist who joined the Moro Islamic Liberation Front soldiers on Tuesday said the fighting was centred on vast marshy forests and farmlands near the town of Datu Salibo.

This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows a government police officer along with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wading through a flooded farm on their way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. (AFP)
This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows a government police officer along with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wading through a flooded farm on their way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. (AFP)

Moro Islamic Liberation Front men were filmed firing automatic weapons from a house, crossing streams and marshes with their machine guns, automatic rifles and rations raised above their heads, and inspecting the ruins of burnt houses.

Datu Salibo is about 100 km south of Marawi and about 800 km south of Manila.

Iqbal put the Moro Islamic Liberation Front death toll from the fighting, which began early this month, at 10. He said the militants had also sustained fatalities, although he could not give confirmed numbers.

The 10,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been leading a decades-long rebellion to establish an independent or autonomous homeland in Mindanao for the mainly Catholic Philippines’ Muslim minority.

The conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed a peace agreement with the previous administration in 2014 that envisages an autonomous Muslim homeland in Mindanao, and is hoping President Rodrigo Duterte can shepherd a final deal through a reluctant Congress.

However a range of more hardline militants, including former Moro Islamic Liberation Front members, oppose any form of peace with the government and some have in recent years pledged allegiance to IS.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has repeatedly warned that, if the peace process collapses, it will lose many of its younger members to IS-aligned groups.

This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and government police wading through a flooded farm on their way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. (AFP)
This photo taken on August 22, 2017 shows members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and government police wading through a flooded farm on their way to the frontline in Datu Salibo town, Maguindanao province, in the southern island of Mindanao. (AFP)

Hundreds of IS-supporters occupied parts of Marawi in late May. Government forces have been unable to dislodge the militants in Marawi despite a massive, US-backed military campaign.

The conflict has claimed more than 700 lives.

Iqbal said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s current battles against another group near Datu Salibo showed IS was becoming a threat in other parts of the south.

“They’re an affiliate of ISIS and they plant the black (ISIS) flag wherever they go,” Iqbal said, using an alternate acronym meaning Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. “They cause trouble everywhere. We are against their way of life. We are against terrorism.”

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