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Marawi, Movida and ISIS in South East Asia

It has been more than a month the Marawi City has been attack by ISIS.

In Mosul, ISIS was defeated and in Raqqa the coalition forces almost took over the capital of the caliphate.

Many foreign fighters of ISIS are now returning home or going to 'other' battle grounds.

ISIS wants to recreate its caliphate elsewhere. South East Asia seems to be more suitable for them. The ongoing 'war' in Marawi is a solid evidence to prove this notion.

A year ago, ISIS landed in Malaysia officially when it launched its attack in Movida Bar, Puchong.

Unlike in Philippines where ISIS wanted to establish a ‘wilayat’ or region like in Syria and Iraq, in Malaysia they just want to show their presence.

Therefore, future attacks in Malaysia and other parts of South East Asia will be similar as the attacks in Paris, London and Berlin.

In Malaysia, ISIS is going to use 'soft weapons' like knife, vehicles (car, motorcycle, van, tanker lorry or container lorry) and petrol bombs.

Most likely, they will not resort to heavy weapons like bombs, guns or M16 because in the past they have failed to execute a single act by using these types of weapons except for the Movida attack.

They will act in a small group of less than 5 people in such as the London Bridge and Borough Market attacks and will die for their false ideologies.

The other possibilities would be a lone wolf strategy. The success of PDRM to arrest and to prosecute the supporters/sympathizers/terrorists in past few years will align them to such a strategy in the near future. One of the possible target will be the SEA games venues.

The attacks in the last few years conducted by ISIS or ISIS inspired attackers in Europe have a similar modus operandi.

They will be in small group targeting people in public places where there is lax of security. But the impact will be noxious such as in Paris, Berlin and Brussels attacks.

The job done by PDRM is commendable. But they cannot be over confident of their own success. This because ISIS is not like any other terrorist group. 

ISIS can evolve itself at any time. It can take multiple forms to regenerate its presence.

Although it is a well organizes group, it can also inspired loosely independent self-radicalized individuals with its propaganda tools. Hence, it can attack at anytime and anywhere in this world.

That makes ISIS so perilous and impulsive.

The Marawi attack is a surprised for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Even though USA and other countries are helping AFP to retake this city but the resistance is too strong. This is analogous to their battle in Mosul and Raqqa.

Therefore the security forces in this region should not allow ISIS in the first place to conquest any part of the countries because that will allow ISIS to expand its territory.


In a nutshell, the strength of ISIS cannot be underestimated. Even though they are unable to penetrate well enough in Malaysia but this country still remains one of their prime target. 

Kuala Lumpur.

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