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by Cecil Morella Agence France Presse MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — The chief of the Philippines’ main Muslim rebel group warned Tuesday that jihadists loyal to the Islamic State group, flush with looted guns and cash, could seize another Filipino city after Marawi last year. Murad Ebrahim has billed his Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has made peace with the government, as a rival to IS for the hearts and minds of angry young […]
MANILA, Philippines (AFP The Philippines has bought 16 new Bell helicopters from Canada for about US$235 million to strengthen its fight against Islamic militants and other domestic insurgencies, defence officials said Wednesday. The two governments announced the deal less than three months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau clashed with host President Rodrigo Duterte over Philippine drug war killings, on the sidelines of a Manila summit. The Philippine defence department signed the 12- billion-peso (US$234.8 million) Bell […]
YALA, Thailand (AFP) — A motorcycle bomb killed three civilians and wounded 22 others on Monday morning at a market in Thailand’s insurgency-hit south, officials said, the first such attack on a ‘soft target’ in the Muslim-majority region for months. A rebellion against Thai rule in the culturally distinct Thai “Deep South” bordering Malaysia has left nearly 7,000 dead — the majority civilians — since 2004. The death toll in 2017 from the insurgency was […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Talks were held Monday to “settle issues” over the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, Bangladeshi officials told AFP, as doubts linger over how many of the 655,000 Muslim minority who fled violence are likely to return. Under diplomatic pressure, Myanmar has vowed to repatriate refugees driven into Bangladesh by an army crackdown last year, if they can verify they belong in western Rakhine state. But aid agencies question how many […]
COX’s BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) – At least 12 people died and scores were missing Monday after a boat packed with Rohingya refugees — many of them children — capsized, the latest tragedy to strike those fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Coast guard and border guard officials said the boat was overloaded with about 100 people when it sank late Sunday in the mouth of the Naf river that separates Myanmar from Bangladesh. Border […]
by Claire Cozens Agence France-Presse RAMU, Bangladesh (AFP) – As thousands of Rohingya flee ethnic violence in Myanmar, Bangladesh’s small Buddhist community fears the crisis could spark a violent backlash from their Muslim neighbours. Many Bangladeshis are angry over the treatment in Buddhist-majority Myanmar of the Rohingya, a persecuted stateless minority who they see as Muslim brethren. The anger is particularly acute in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar near the border with Myanmar, where many people have […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Hamza bin Laden, son and would-be heir of late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has urged Muslims around the world to join the jihad in Syria against “crusaders” and Shiites. “The cause of Syria is the cause of the entire worldwide Muslim community,” he said in an undated audio recording released on jihadist networks Thursday. “In order for the people of Syria to resist the Crusader, Shiite and international aggression, Muslims […]
MARAWI, Philippines (AFP) — Ten suspected militants were killed in the Philippines on Monday as they attempted to infiltrate a southern city partly occupied by gunmen loyal to the Islamic State group, officials said. Government forces have been besieging the militants in the city of Marawi for almost 100 days. But the gunmen, flying the IS black flag, have defied military assaults including airstrikes and artillery barrages. Before dawn Monday 10 militants aboard two […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump appeared Thursday to endorse the idea of mass executions for Islamist extremists, as he alluded to a widely debunked account of summary punishment by a US general in the Philippines in the early 1900s. It was another provocative tweet from an increasingly isolated leader who uses Twitter to take shots at perceived opponents — and even announce big policy changes. Thursday’s tweet also suggested Trump actually believes […]
by Gregory Danel / Romain Fonsegrives Agence France Presse CRETEIL, France — A man drove his vehicle into barriers protecting a mosque in the Paris suburbs Thursday, forcing worshippers to dodge out of the way, police and officials said. Muslim community leaders described the incident, which injured no one, as an “attempted attack” and an “Islamophobic act.” It came nearly two weeks after a man rammed a van into worshippers outside a mosque in London, […]
(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to crush the Islamist militants in Marawi who have allowed themselves to be contaminated with an ideology that is radical, brutal and very foreign from the Philippines, and Asia — the Malay people — in general. “Alam mo sa totoo lang, if it was just an uprising, just the mainstream rebellion of the MI(LF) and the MNLF, I can endure a war with you. And I can even […]
(Eagle News) — A group of eight religious people was among those who tried to negotiate recently with Abdullah Maute, one the Maute brothers who led the attack on Marawi City, so more of their hostages can be released and more of the civilians trapped in the city can be rescued. This was according to government peace panel assistant secretary Dickson Hermoso of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) […]
