Transnational Islam, Regional Terrorism, and Military Power: The Rise of Muslim Special Unit in the Philippines Armed Force

Abstract

Even so, in 2017, the public was shocked by the emergence of the Maute group in Marawi which is affiliated with ISIS, also known as Daesh, who are transnational terrorists. They commit many human rights violations such as kidnapping and murder. In addition, terrorist groups that have existed before, like Abu Sayyaf, often operated by crossing several Southeast Asian countries’ water boundaries, so the problem is transformed into a regional issue. This study aims to describe and analyze the relationship between transnational Islamic movements, which are the cause of regional terrorism, and the opposition formed by an alternative military approach in combination with religion. These approaches were formed after conventional military actions were felt to be too difficult. This research’s results show that, to face the difficulties of conventional military approaches, the Philippines government formed a Muslim special unit in their military force. On the one hand, this change could have positive impacts. Religious and cultural approach, compared to a conventional military approach, can open up a larger dialogue space. Therefore this unit can be more adaptable because it has the ability to gain local community support. Finally, this specialized unit can facilitate military coordination and cooperation with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam as they are all countries with a majority Muslim population. But, on the other hand, this specialized unit can also have negative impacts. For example, there is the potential emergence of factions within the military or gap between the Muslim units with other soldiers. Also, this unit can reinforce the stigma that Muslims are terrorists and must be fought with hard-core Muslims that are in military uniform.