Marawi and the Asian Caliphate

Marawi has increasingly become the focus of the world’s attention as the street to street fighting enters its third month. The conflict in the city will eventually subside. However, the main concern is whether this violent episode is an isolated event or only part of a longer struggle whose historical roots is centuries old in Philippine history.

Major global think tanks and geopolitical experts have started writing more about the global implications of the Marawi siege on the ongoing worldwide jihadist movement. Here is one part of a report from Stratfor:

“Insurgency has a long history in Mindanao. The island group is far removed from the capital of Manila and has strong geographic and historical ties to a congruous region of Indonesia and Malaysia. And whereas the Philippines as a whole is more than 90% Christian, about 20% of the residents of Mindanao are Muslim, with many concentrated in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, as well as the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. The ethnic Moro Muslims have resisted the state on and off since the colonial period, with modern insurgencies tracing their roots back to the 1960s. Duterte, who was mayor of Davao City in southeast Mindanao for 22 years, understands the delicate balance among militant groups in the region.”

The fragmentation of the Muslim groups and the presence of political war lords in the Muslim regions of Mindanao have also become major obstacles to a permanent peace process. In 2014, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the strongest militant group in Mindanao, made a peace deal with the government of then President Benigno Aquino. Essentially, the agreement proposed the Bangsamoro Basic Law which would create the Bangsamoro autonomous region with a lawmaking body, a judicial system and police force together with a substantial share of taxes and mineral wealth. The Philippine Congress was not able to pass the necessary legislation.

It has been reported that because of the failure of the MILF and the government to conclude the agreement and the entry of ideological groups like ISIS, the younger and more radical members of established groups, like the MILF, have begun challenging the more moderate policy of their leadership. The Maute group was reportedly organized by disaffected fighters of the MILF who formed their own organization under the leadership of Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute. The other militant groups challenging the government and the MILF are the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters ( BIFF) and the Abu Sayyaf.

In the same Stratfor report, here is another excerpt on the Maute group.”

“In 2015, the Maute group declared its allegiance to the Islamic state. And the Islamic State’s rise has only complicated Mindanao’s situation by providing a fresh rallying point. Foreign fighters – a number of whom appear to be participating in the Marawi City fight, according to the Philippine military – have buoyed the Maute group. The Islamic State in Syria also managed to make numerous small transfers of money to the Maute fighters in Marawi via Malaysian intermediary Dr. Mahmud bin Ahmad. The slow motion collapse of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will only exacerbate these problems. The movement is evolving into one that thrives in vacuums of authority and crisis of legitimacy – both of which describe Mindanao. If Manila cannot manage to get a handle on the region, it will continue to be a haven for radical groups.”

Southeast Asian  Caliphate

The formation of a Southeast Asian Caliphate has been the subject of speculation and studies ever since Osama Bin laden made jihadism a worldwide concern. The Islamic state of Southeast Asia is envisioned to include the predominantly Muslim populated areas of Malaysia, Southern Thailand, Indonesia and Mindanao. There is an insurgency movement in all these places. 

It is estimated that more than 1,000 fighters from Southeast Asia have gone to Syria and Iraq since 2012. While most of them travelled to the Middle East specifically to join Islamist forces, some were recruited while studying in the Middle East. Many of these fighters were also veterans of conflicts in Afghanistan, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Initially, the Southeast Asians joined three principal groups in Syria and Iraq – Al Qaeda, Jabat al-Nusra and Ajnad al-Sham., However, with the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq in 2013 and the pronouncement of the Caliphate in June 2014, most of the Southeast Asian jihadist groups have shifted to ISIS. More than 60 southeast Asian groups have pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi, the self proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic Caliphate.

The recent losses in territories of ISIS in the Middle East is being seen as the principal motivation for shifting more attention to Southeast Asia. The region’s long history of Islamic radical militancy and the rising number of extremist groups adopting ISIS ideology make Southeast Asia a very attractive target. The Asian fighters are said to be coming back to their homelands to continue their fight for a caliphate in this part of the world.

In Islamic tradition, a caliphate is a territory under the leadership of an Islamic steward known as the Caliph, a person considered a religious successor to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and the leader of the entire Muslim community. The Caliphates were polities based in islam which crossed ethnic and national boundaries. There have been four caliphates in world history. The last one was the Ottoman Empire which lasted from 1517 to 1924. At the height of its power, it ruled Turkey, Southeast Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Egypt, Caucasus and Western Asia. 

The failure of ISIS to revive the Caliphate, similar to the Ottoman Empire, does not mean their ambition will end. They may yet look towards Southeast Asia as their next stage of their revolution. 

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