ISIS using Covid-19 pandemic to draw in recruits in Philippines

Hossam al-Haddad

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) uses the Covid-19 pandemic in the Philippines to draw in new recruits.

ISIS does this in an attempt to expand its activities in the Asian country, three years after it controlled Marawi city in the southern part of the Philippines.

According to local authorities in the city, ISIS uses the city’s quarantine to mobilize poor and deprived youth against the government.

ISIS also uses the same conditions to recruit youth, the authorities said.

Rommel Banlaoi, the head of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, said ISIS maintained its activities despite the strict lockdown imposed by Philippine authorities throughout the country because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, Banlaoi said the pandemic had slowed down the entry of jihadists into the Philippines from other countries.

ISIS, he said, uses the pandemic to justify its attacks.

He added that the terrorist organization also uses the lockdown in recruiting new members.

Banlaoi noted that the recruitment activities of ISIS are most concentrated in rural areas where the effects of the pandemic and the lockdown are most acute.

Around 59 foreign militants had entered the Philippines in an illegal manner since 2019, according to data released by the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.

It said these militants were given support by factions loyal to ISIS in Mindanao in the southern part of the Philippines.

These militants, the center said, consider the Philippines to be the “new land of jihad”.