The international terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) has alleged in a propaganda video that it has set up a training camp in the Philippines, a claim that was quickly denied by the Philippine government.
The Mail Online earlier reported that "the Philippines has become the latest ISIS target for expansion" based on the content of the video, which shows several alleged jihadist commanders urging Filipinos to travel to Syria to join ISIS.
The video footage also shows the "soldiers of the Caliphate in the Philippines" climbing up rope ladders, crawling under barbed wire and practicing with weapons in a series of assault course drills to showcase their fitness and agility inside an alleged secret ISIS training camp in a Philippine jungle.
Reacting to the Mail Online report, Philippine Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said on Tuesday the claim made in the alleged ISIS video is false. Quoting Philippine National Security Adviser Cesar Garcia, Coloma said "ISIS has no training camps in the Philippines," GMA News Online reported.
"What ISIS-linked personalities have done is to try to link up with local jihadist/terrorist groups," Coloma said.
"Some of these ISIS-linked personalities, who are really few in number, have also sought refuge in the base areas of these local terrorist groups," he added.
Philippine military spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla said the video is undergoing cyber-forensics by intelligence operatives from various agencies to verify its authenticity.
Speaking to GMA News Online, Padilla said the Armed Forces of the Philippines is not denying that there are ISIS-inspired personalities and ISIS sympathisers in the Philippines. "But the military has not seen any verified or credible or authentic link between local Islamic bandits and ISIS," he pointed out.
Nevertheless, Padilla said they consider the video as more dangerous than previously released ISIS propaganda as it directly called on Filipino Muslims to take up arms and fight with the jihadists in Syria. Earlier video footages coming from Islamic radicals mostly demanded ransom for kidnap victims or professed sympathy to ISIS.
Last year when Philippine President Benigno Aquino III made a state visit to Germany, he issued a statement downplaying the threat posed by ISIS in the Philippines, saying the former Islamic rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which signed a tentative peace accord with Manila, is helping prevent Filipino Muslims from getting drawn to the terrorist group, the Inquirer.net reported.
Aquino expressed doubts over claims that some of the local Muslim rebels have become affiliated with ISIS. "With regard to claims of being part of ISIS, we think these are more [of] claims, and our intelligence reports tell us that they are not based on actual contact or coordination with the same," he said in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
