Check out SITE Executive Director Rita Katz' latest tweets, which offer exclusive details about how al-Qaeda withheld news about the assassination of one of its top members, Abu Muhammad al-Masri.

Introduction

Three years after the Islamic State (IS) sieged the Philippine city of Marawi, the terrorist threat to the Philippines and the wider Southeast Asian region has grown. IS central has asserted its reach, influence, and authority over diverse groups. This thereby signaled the beginning of a more extreme IS presence in Mindanao and IS’ East Asia Province (ISEAP) taking control of the propaganda machine. The siege in Marawi served as a dramatic rallying point for IS cells across the region to send support. The Armed Forces of Philippines (AFP) was able to retake the city after five months of intense urban warfare. Despite the victory, at least four IS groups remain in Mindanao. These are: Hajan Sawadjaan-led IS Sulu, Furuji Indama-led IS Basilan, Abu Turaife, Salahuddin Hasaan and Bungos-led IS Maguindanao, and a leaderless IS Lanao. These groups continue to conduct widespread and increasingly sophisticated attacks, even using tactics previously confined to Afghanistan and Iraq. This indicates that the longstanding localized conflict in Mindanao is expanding to a wider regional conflict. 

A SITE Intelligence Group investigation into lists of World Health Organization, Gates Foundation, and other institutions’ email credentials revealed that the data was not the result of a new hack, but rather a larger collection of leaked materials compiled in years prior.

From neo-Nazis to jihadists, the COVID-19 pandemic has proved to many terrorists that the United States is not the ever-prepared, all-knowing power it once appeared to be, and nor are many of its Western allies. 

In a time when social media plays a major role in recruitment to violent extremism, Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) has become the most powerful tool in collecting intelligence on terrorists and extremists. However, such tools are only as useful as the ability of the analysts to collect and analyze its contents. In the Philippines, this proves to be an obstacle due to the diverse local dialects used to communicate terrorist intent.