MANILA, Philippines – Former Abu Sayyaf senior leader Isnilon Hapilon, who has been confirmed by a Philippine official as the designated leader of the Islamic State or ISIS in the country and was seen with members of the Maute Group when they attacked Marawi last Tuesday, is still in the city and “is not in good condition.”
This was according to Armed Forces chief General Eduardo Año, also the chief implementor of martial law that was imposed in Mindanao by President Rodrigo Duterte starting Tuesday, May 23.
“Hapilon is still inside Marawi,” Año told reporters on Friday, May 26. “He’s not in good condition. Kaya [That’s why] we believe that this Maute group (is) trying to rescue and protect him because he’s not in good condition.”
“He was wounded in the previous encounter. He’s self deteriorated,” added Año, referring to Hapilon, who was reportedly seriously wounded during a military airstrike in Butig, Lanao del Sur last January.
The military chief said that if the 50-year-old Hapilon, the country’s most wanted terror leader, “fights back, we will do what is necessary.”
Besides Maute Group leaders, Hapilon is also the target of the ongoing military operations in Marawi.
“He was [the target], and his force engaged the military and the police,” said Defense chief Delfin Lorenzana last Wednesday, May 24.
ISIS point person in PH
On Friday, Solicitor General Jose Calida confirmed during a press conference in Davao City that Hapilon is the ISIS point person in the Philippines.
Calidad added that Philippine “security and intelligence units” had “monitored ISIS and Maute literature and publications containing orders to their adherence to attack the Philippine government and establish a ‘wilayat’ or ISIS province in Mindanao.”
“The dream of the Maute group, which has pledged allegiance to the ISIS and to its flag, is to transform Mindanao into an Islamic state or in their language Daulah Islamiyah,” said Calida.
In 2014, Hapilon appeared in a video with two masked men pledging allegiance to the ISIS and went on to organize an alliance in the Philippines called Dawlatul Islam Wilayatul Mashriq.
He was said to have been chosen to lead the Islamic State group branch in Southeast Asia, according to a 2016 report by the Jakarta-based think-tank Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.
Hapilon, former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front, was indicted in the U.S. for his involvement in the 2001 Abu Sayyaf kidnapping of three Americans Martin and Gracia Burnham and Guillermo Sobero at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan.
Sobero was beheaded in Basilan while Martin was killed in a crossfire with the military during a 2002 rescue operation.
