Malaysian defense minister meets with Lorenzana

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – Malaysia’s defense minister – on a visit to a military camp here – yesterday urged the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to sustain the Mindanao peace process by helping contain terrorism in conflict areas in the region.

Hishammuddin Tun Hussein was at Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao to discuss with his Filipino counterpart Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana the situation in Marawi City and the presence of Malaysians in the ranks of local jihadists now creating trouble in Mindanao.

“We must not allow terrorists to derail the peace process,” Hussein said after an hour-long dialogue with Lorenzana and other top Philippine defense officials at the headquarters of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

“We must not give any foothold to these groups. We should not allow them to hijack people to support or recognize them,” he added.

Malaysia is helping push forward the diplomatic overture between Malacañang and the MILF as third party facilitator since 2003.

Its soldiers are helping implement a 20-year-old ceasefire through the International Monitoring Team (IMT) together with soldiers from Brunei and Indonesia, and civilian conflict resolution experts from Japan, the European Union and Norway.

Hussein and his entourage, including senior officials of the Malaysian Royal Armed Forces, arrived yesterday morning from Kota Kinabalu on a military aircraft that brought them directly to the Maguindanao airport near Camp Siongco.

He called on the MILF to continue supporting the Armed Forces of the Philippines in preventing the spread of local militant groups claiming allegiance to the Middle East-based Islamic State.

The MILF and the Philippine government are bound by a ceasefire accord – the 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities – to help each other enforce law and order in preparation for a final peace agreement.

He said Malaysia and the Philippines would also work together to determine who the foreign benefactors of local terrorists are and how funds from abroad reach them.

“We have an undivided support to efforts of addressing the ISIS problem here. Let no ISIS hijack people,” Hussein said, referring to the terror network’s other acronym.

He admitted some Malaysian terrorists have blended in with Mindanao-based militant factions.

It is known to the local communities that there are Malaysians and Indonesians in the ranks of the Maute, Abu Sayyaf and the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters operating in four towns in the second district of Maguindanao province.

The late Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, was said to have trained more  than a hundred recruits in the fabrication and handling of improvised explosive devices while in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao.

Marwan was killed on Jan. 25, 2015 by men of the elite Special Action Force in his hideout in Sitio Inug-ug in Barangay Pidsandawan, Mamasapano.

His accomplice, bomb-maker Abdulbasit Usman, an ethnic Maguindanaon, was shot dead three months later by MILF guerrillas.

There are government-recognized MILF enclaves in Lanao del Sur province where Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants – collectively called Dawlah Islamiya – have presence.