The Philippines said Wednesday there was no evidence that the country was being used for terrorist training, a day after it was revealed the men behind Australia’s Bondi Beach mass shooting had spent November on a southern island known for Islamist insurgencies.<\/p>\n
“(President Ferdinand Marcos) strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterisation of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot,” presidential spokeswoman Claire Castro said at a press briefing,<\/p>\n
“No evidence has been presented to support claims that the country was used for terrorist training,” she added, reading from a National Security Council statement.<\/p>\n
“There is no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines.”<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the country’s immigration office confirmed that Sajid Akram and his son Naveed, who killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, entered the country on November 1 headed for the southern province of Davao.<\/p>\n
The island of Mindanao, where Davao is located, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.<\/p>\n
Australian authorities are investigating whether the two men met with extremists during the trip.<\/p>\n
The Philippine military, however, said Wednesday that armed Muslim groups still operating on Mindanao had been largely degraded in the years since the siege of Marawi.<\/p>\n
The five-month battle for the city that pitted government forces against pro-Islamic State Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n
“We have not recorded any major terrorist operations or training activities… since the beginning of 2024,” Philippine military spokeswoman Colonel Francel Padilla said at a morning press briefing.<\/p>\n
“They are fragmented, and they have no leadership,” she added of the insurgent groups.<\/p>\n
Colonel Xerxes Trinidad told reporters the father-and-son duo’s November trip to the Philippines would not have provided adequate time for significant training.<\/p>\n
“Training cannot be acquired in just 30 days … especially if you are to undergo marksmanship (training),” he said.<\/p>\n
But Rommel Banlaoi, a Manila-based security analyst, told AFP that while many insurgent groups were “on the run”, they were far from eradicated.<\/p>\n
“There are still many active training camps in (central) Mindanao. Those did not disappear,” he told AFP, adding even weakened insurgent movements maintained connections “locally and globally online”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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