Marawi is an Indicator for Security Position of Southeast Asia

It is a shocking statement when Indonesia’s General Gatot Nurmantyo said that daesh sleeper cells exist in every provinces across Indonesia’s archipelago. For those who are not familiar with intelligence jargons, sleeper cell is referring to a secretive group of spies or terrorist agents that remain inactive within a target population until ordered to act. Sleeper cells despite known inactive from public views but in reality they are in prepared mode and usually will be moving around at their given areas to collect information on the ground.

With Marawi mini-war entered its third months, no government, particularly in Southeast, shall play down the real threat that are waiting ahead for its member countries. Philippines government forces failed to accomplished few self-imposed deadlines to recapture Marawi, the biggest southern cities in the Philippines and the number of casualties is keep increasing. Further at this point there is no clear signal that the city is cooling down despite the claim that only around 70 terrorists remain in the city. Nevertheless, the capability of the terrorist to keep fighting and to retain portion of the city with few hundreds of hostages shows that no one should underestimate its enemy.   

Informed sources has indicated that more foreigner daesh fighters are moving to Marawi to reinforce their grip on the city. As the Philippines consists of more than 7,000 islands, most of its maritime borders are vulnerable and without proper security arrangement to stop illegal movement. Sulu zone or well known as Southern Backdoor is the easiest entry point to enter Mindanao illegally.

Daesh almost completely wiped-out in Iraq and most probably will face the same consequence in Syria. The terrorist group members do not have much choices as they are losing ground to the state forces. The remaining ground fighters most probably have escaped, fled to another location to continue their ideology. Nevertheless, I will not be surprised if those terrorists quietly flew to the Philippines in advance before the fall of their central command in Iraq. Some may have been using Sabah or Sarawak as their transit point to Mindanao. Travelling through sea lane from Sabah to Mindanao is much safer and furthermore the nearest island Tawi-tawi are just a stone thrown away from Sabah.

SITE, Intelligence group also has reported that Pro-IS Telegram Channel calls for Muslims (sleeper cells) in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei to rush to the Philippines as a reinforcement soldiers. On top of this Institute of Policy Analysis of Conflict has reported that daesh central command had channeled huge fund to daesh affiliated terrorists in Marawi and they have millions in cash as well as gold to fuel more attacks across Southeast Asia. When we connect all these pieces of information one can say that terrorist attacks in Southeast is imminent.