Belmonte asks NBI: Stop ISIS recruitment

MANILA, Philippines - Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to help thwart reported attempts of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group from extending their influence and recruiting members in the country.

“We should not allow our people to fall prey to attempts to sow fear and confusion, disrupt democratic processes, topple governments, and destabilize well-functioning economies, such as ours,” the leader of the House of Representatives said in his speech at the 78th anniversary celebration of the NBI.

Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) spokesman Emmanuel Fontanilla earlier warned that foreign preachers of the IS begun arriving in Mindanao and Sulu to seek alliance with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and other extremist groups. IS fighters have taken large territories in the Middle East, forming what is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Fontanilla said the arrival of ISIS preachers was monitored last August and they began making rounds of rebel camps in Central Mindanao and Sulu.

“The ISIS preachers who are floating the Islamic extremist belief wanted to get the support of the BIFF and Abu Sayyaf in their effort to expand their caliphate in Mindanao,” he said.

Fontanilla said ISIS missionaries wanted to put under their umbrella the terror groups in Mindanao.

The MNLF has banned ISIS preachers from its camps, Fontanilla said.

He added that the Sunni preachers, who began arriving last August, have concentrated their recruitment activities among the Abu Sayyaf and other extremist groups  after MNLF leaders turned down their attempt to seek an alliance.

“They (ISIS preachers) were told that MNLF has renounced violence in attaining its political objective,” he said.   – With Perseus Echeminada