Maute: Masters of propaganda

Mainstream media quickly intensified their new gatekeeping as martial law was imposed in Mindanao Tuesday. Info-bits were subjected to stricter verifications than ever, and reports marked with exact times of publication or broadcast. Inconsistencies dutifully were screened out or pointed up. Like, the Armed Forces-Western Mindanao spokesperson’s claim of only 15 “Maute” terrorists attacking a section of Marawi City was printed side by side with Defense Sec. Delfin Lorenzana’s count from faraway Moscow that more than a hundred were on the attack. Too the spokesperson’s denials of the jihadists’ occupation of a hospital and torching of a school and a jailhouse were interspersed with videos of the captured and burning buildings. The news outlets were being careful. It’s a war situation, and misinformation is rife.

The Maute strikers were in fact so adept at propaganda. As some of them watched the doctors treat their wounded, others took time out to raise the black flag of the Islamic State at the hospital courtyard. Members elsewhere assembled in IS t-shirts for instant selfies in public squares. The videos were posted on social media, and from there rapidly spread by horrified innocent viewers. The terrorists made it look like they were on the verge of conquering Mindanao, if not the whole country.

The aim of terrorism is to disrupt people’s normal lives. Maute succeeded. Thousands of Marawi residents fled the city by motor vehicles or on foot. Shops and schools closed in surrounding towns. The Maute jihadists must have patted each other in the back for making President Duterte proclaim martial law not only in Marawi but the whole Mindanao, and contemplate to encompass Visayas and Luzon as well. That would earn them points with the IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, supposedly holed up in Raqqa, Syria. Only weeks ago the defense and military brass were assuring that operations against the Maute were normal fare.

The very use of “Islamic State” shows mastery of propaganda. It implies that the group holds territory and governs willing people in a global caliphate. In truth the vast majority of Muslim Filipinos detest its violence. Muslim clerics in fact concluded only last weekend two peace caravans, in Metro Manila and in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao. Still IS’ image of power in Iraq and Syria, along with the terror it unleashes in European capitals, attracts recruits. In his book “Jihad and Death” Olivier Roy analyzes why even schoolgirls leave families and friends to sign up with the extremists. The IS, he says, markets itself to “children of the modern youth culture.” Joiners know little about Islam, are into furious martial arts, and fond of rap music and violent Hollywood movies. In their eyes, IS is heroic and glamorous, Roy notes. That is not to say the recruits are brainwashed dolts; they are radical because they choose to be.

The Maute band apes IS by calling itself “Islamic State of Lanao.” It began from a cultist clan in Lanao del Sur, until “indoctrinated” and expanded by Abu Sayyaf terrorist chieftain Isnilon Hapilon from Sulu. Reportedly Hapilon taught the jihadists to build up arms and raise funds by extortion. From military intelligence, they peddle meth for easy money, and snort it too for courage and stamina. Drugs are a global weapon of Islamist extremists, says Fernando Reinares in his extensive research, “Al-Qaeda’s Revenge.” The IS allegedly was behind last year’s explosion at the night market in Duterte’s home city of Davao, and the attempted bombing of the United States embassy in Manila.

A major difference between Maute and IS, though, is that the former is not into suicide missions. Both are as ruthless in beheading noncompliant Muslims and hated Christian infidels. But Filipinos are not a self-exterminating lot. Unlike the IS in Syria and Iraq that fights positional warfare, Maute strikes guerrilla-like, raises the black flag for publicity, then quickly withdraws into its jungle lairs.

Secretary Lorenzana says the Armed Forces know where the enemies are hiding. Army troops are in hot pursuit of the Marawi attackers, as they are of Abu Sayyaf remnants in Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi. Flushing out the terrorists from the jungle terrain they know so well may be tough, but that is the only way to smash them. In “Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror,” David Kilcullen says the relentlessness of some battles weakened the IS, but Western allies’ indecision allowed it to rebound. The lesson there is that the Philippine government must starve the terrorists of food and funds, drugs and ammo.

The sooner that’s done, the better. Unless the terrorists are routed, public services will wane (Marawi was in blackout) and infrastructures continue to be razed. Tourism and investments would be left hanging until martial law is lifted. Prolonged economic misery could lead to mass discontent with the government. That would really be playing into the hands of Maute/IS.

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