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 A senior police intelligence official said Manila was also
monitoring young Filipino Muslims who have gone to Syria and Iraq,
and then tried to radicalize others on their return home.
The Philippines has been battling its own small but violent Islamist
militant group, Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for kidnappings,
beheadings and bombings in the south. Since 2002, a U.S. special
forces unit has been advising and training local troops.
Thousands of fighters from dozens of countries have traveled to
Syria and Iraq to fight with extremist groups, prompting the United
States to draft a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding
countries "prevent and suppress" the recruitment and travel of
foreign fighters.
"These are disturbing developments that could affect our internal
security situation," the intelligence official, who declined to be
named because he was not allowed to talk to the press, told Reuters.
"We have scant data based on intermittent information made available
from different agencies, including the Department of Foreign
Affairs. We are now exchanging intelligence with our foreign
partners so we can build our own data base."
Based on these exchanges, he said they have noted a gradual increase
of foreign fighters heading to Syria coming from Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Xinjiang, a troubled
province in western China.
But the movement is not only one way, he said. Some locals who saw
action in Syria, labeled themselves as "veterans" had returned to
the south of the mainly Catholic state to spread extremist Muslim
ideologies.
Documents seen by Reuters showed two Filipino Muslims had died in
the Syria conflict in March. The foreign ministry also reported in
May that about 100 Filipinos traveled to Iran to undergo military
training and were subsequently deployed in Syria.
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"One of them was raised in Syria and the other was a local passport
holder," said the intelligence official.
Rommel Banlaoi of the Center for Intelligence and National Security
Studies said the threats from Islamic State militants in the
Philippines "is real rather than imagined".
"ISIS is replacing al Qaeda as the champion of the world Islamic
caliphate," Banlaoi said, adding a video on YouTube last month
indicated an Islamic caliphate in the Philippines has been
established.
Militants from Abu Sayyaf, Khilafa Islamiyah Mindanao, Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Muslim convert group Rajah Solaiman
Islamic Movement had pledged support to Islamic State militants in
Syria and Iraq.
On Wednesday, Washington authorized airstrikes for the first time in
Syria and more attacks in Iraq in a broad escalation of a campaign
against the Islamic State, which has seized large stretches of Iraq
and Syria.
(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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