EDITORIAL - A borderless war

Closed-circuit TV footage showed the three men pushing luggage carts into the check-in area at the Brussels airport. On each cart sat bags, now believed to contain the two bombs that were set off last Tuesday morning in the Belgian capital. Two of the men wore black gloves, believed used to conceal detonators.

The two died as they set off the explosives; the third man walked out of the airport as people lay wounded and dying. Probers believe his bomb failed to detonate. Shortly after the attack, another explosion ripped through the Brussels Metro system. As of yesterday, 14 people had died in the airport attack and 20 in the Metro train.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for the worst terrorist attack in the city that hosts the headquarters of the European Union.

The attack is just the latest warning about the borderless war that ISIS is waging, if not directly then through adherents inspired by its gospel of hate.

In the Philippines, security officials have downplayed reports of local extremists pledging to support ISIS. The group is said to be trying to gain a solid foothold in the Philippines. This shouldn’t prove too hard, considering that the country is already home to several of Southeast Asia’s extremist troublemakers: the Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and other rogue elements of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front.

These groups have launched terrorist attacks from Mindanao to Metro Manila in the past two decades, killing hundreds of civilians and security forces. Authorities cannot discount the possibility that apart from being inspired by ISIS, these homegrown extremists might receive funding from the Islamic State, using the same financial loopholes exploited by money launderers. The attacks in Brussels should lead to tighter security controls, not only in terms of public safety but also in preventing terrorist financing.