The number of foreign fighters of the Islamic State entering the Philippines is growing and the momentum they generate among local Islamic groups may prompt them to declare a new caliphate. The British newspaper The Guardian cited "a senior intelligence official" who said that between 40 and 100 foreign fighters have joined the Islamic State in the southern Philippines in the last 12 months. Most come from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. But there are also fighters from Pakistan, Bangladesh and several countries in the Middle East, the secret service official said. One of them, a Moroccan militant, carried out a suicide attack on Lamitan, on the island of Basilan, south of Mindanao, in July this year, killing 11 people. There are fears among experts that the Islamic State may soon declare a new caliphate, given that local support for militant Islamism is growing.
Following the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, later renamed the Islamic State) in 2014 in the Middle East, several Islamist groups in the Philippines have declared allegiance to the Emir of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They included fighters from Abu Sayyaf, Ansar al-Khilafah, the Maute group, Bangsamoro Islamic freedom fighters and other smaller factions active on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. In May 2017, these fighters launched a joint attack on Marawi, the capital of the province of Lanao del Sur, in Mindanao. Within 48 hours, they had occupied the entire city of 200.000 people and declared it the capital of "East Asian Wilayah", an overseas province of the Islamic State. Among them were about 80 foreign fighters from dozens of countries. After the declaration of the caliphate, the insurgents launched several appeals on social media for foreign Islamists to join them. Several dozen people from the Muslim world and Western Europe have attempted to do so, according to Philippine police.
The violent takeover of Marawi provoked a counterattack by the Philippine Armed Forces, which launched a large-scale urban warfare operation on May 23, 2017. The hostilities ended on October 17, 2017, when the Philippine government declared the victory against the Islamic State. The military operation is known as "the battle of Marawi" and is believed to have been the longest urban battle in the history of the Philippines after World War II. More than 1.200 people died in the five-month battle, most of them civilians. Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced to this day as a result of the fighting.
According to The Guardian, information gleaned from local and foreign Islamic fighters in the country suggests support for the Islamic State among local Muslims is growing, following three factors: first, the arrival of dozens of battle-hardened foreign fighters they are soliciting the locals to fight. Second, the disaffection of the local Muslim population due to the harsh economic conditions in the depressed southern regions of the Philippines. Third, widespread dissatisfaction with rising levels of corruption among government officials in the southern provinces. An expert, Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asian analyst at the US National War College, told the Guardian that the southern Philippines is an important sanctuary for the Islamic State, because "there is enough ungoverned or little governed ".
