In Indonesia and Philippines, Militants Find a Common Bond: ISIS
Iraq said that Southeast Asia was never a priority for ISIS,
Zachary M. Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who specializes in Southeast Asian security issues, said
that the Islamic State was happy to take responsibility for terrorist attacks in other countries, but that he believed the group’s focus on Southeast Asia had diminished as it faced military pressure from the United States and its allies in Iraq and Syria.
While the timing of the Jakarta bombing and the fighting on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao appears to be coincidental, experts on terrorism have been warning for months
that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has provided a new basis for cooperation among extremists in the region.
"It has transmogrified into an invasion by foreign terrorists who heeded the clarion call of the ISIS to go to the Philippines if they find difficulty in going to Iraq or Syria." Mr. Duterte visited a military unit near Marawi on Friday and reminded troops
that Mr. Hapilon was affiliated with the Islamic State.
Clashes in Marawi, a city of about 200,000 on Mindanao, continued for a fourth day on Friday as government forces, using tanks
and attack helicopters, tried to dislodge militants from at least two Islamist groups.
Still, the attacks posed a test for the authorities in the Philippines
and in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, as they confront like-minded extremists who support the creation of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.