RUTHFULLY YOURS

The signs are mounting that the Philippines is now a primary target for Islamic State.

The southern reaches of the mostly Roman Catholic country have long been home to Muslim insurgents seeking to carve out an independent state. Until now, counterterrorism officials and experts have largely viewed local declarations of loyalty to Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as little more than pleas for attention. That is changing.

One of the newest insurgent groups shocked the country three weeks ago by marching into Marawi City and waving black Islamic State flags; they are still holding around 20% of the town along with hundreds of hostages. The standoff with the Philippine military so far has claimed the lives of at least 58 security forces, nearly 200 rebels, and dozens of civilians.

Since the May 23 attack, Islamic State has taken a stronger interest in the Philippines, profiling some of the militants in its propaganda magazine Rumiyah and falsely claiming responsibility for the burning of a Manila casino that left 37 people dead; police say it was in fact a botched robbery by a heavily indebted gambler.

On Sunday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said “it appears that al-Baghdadi himself, the leader of ISIS, has specifically ordered terrorist activities here in the Philippines.” Mr. Duterte didn’t say how he knew about Mr. Baghdadi’s instructions.

Islamic State’s spokesman, in an audio recording circulated on Tuesday, appeared to single out the Philippines for further attacks and praised the assault on Marawi.

The battle for Marawi is being waged by one of the region’s most powerful militias, and its aftermath could determine whether Islamic State can lay down a marker in the Philippines.

Some intelligence officials now worry that the Philippines’ growing profile in jihadist circles could bring more foreign fighters to its shores as Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq. Amid the losses in the Middle East, Islamic State has said it was behind an array of attacks around the world, in a bid to sustain its power.

Governments across Southeast Asia and Australia already are watching the Philippines with concern as militants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia join the fight. The U.S. is getting involved: U.S. Special Operations Forces are providing support for the Philippine military in Marawi. CONTINUE AT SITE

It’s Ramadan, and Beijing is again restricting the peaceful practice of Islam in its western territory of Xinjiang. This year government employees are required to ensure that friends and family aren’t fasting or otherwise observing the Muslim holy month. Under the “Together in Five Things” campaign, cadres are even living in the homes of the Uighur minority, according to the World Uyghur Congress.

This escalation may be due to the arrival of Chen Quanguo, who took over as Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary in August after running Tibet for five years. He has introduced the system of “grid-style social management” he pioneered in Tibet that allows the government to closely monitor households.

According to state media, Xinjiang’s security budget increased 19.3% in 2016 to more than $4.4 billion, and 30,000 new officers were hired. In February Mr. Chen described security as “grim” and urged the People’s Armed Police to “bury the corpses of terrorists and terror gangs in the vast sea of the people’s war.” So much for winning hearts and minds.

New “Regulations on Anti-Extremism” that came into effect in April outlawed veils or “abnormal” beards. Parents can’t give children “overly religious” names such as Muhammad or encourage them to follow the Muslim faith. All Xinjiang residents were forced to turn in their passports late last year and must give a DNA sample when they apply for a new one.

Other measures include antiterror drills, shows of force by the security services and the installation of satellite tracking devices in cars. Mandatory activities for students are deliberately scheduled on Fridays to prevent them from attending mosque services, and rewards are offered for reporting men who wear a beard or women who wear a veil.

Control over the Uighur population goes far beyond religion. The use of their native language is discouraged in schools, and economic opportunities are limited. The best jobs go to Han Chinese settlers, who are given incentives to move to Xinjiang. Peaceful dissent is not tolerated. The Uighurs’ most articulate spokesman, Minzu University Professor Ilham Tohti, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for promoting separatism.

Sporadic attacks by Uighurs on Han Chinese have continued since riots in the capital Urumqi killed almost 200 people in 2009. In the city of Hotan, three men ran amok with knives and killed five people in February after a family was punished for praying at home. Most attacks appear to be spontaneous and poorly planned, despite Beijing’s claims that overseas terrorist groups are directing the violence.

Yet China’s fears of a Uighur terrorist movement may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Uighurs flee the country and some become radicalized, Islamic State issued a video in February in which a Uighur fighter threatened China with “rivers of blood.” The government’s anti-Islamic policies are also causing anger among Muslim nations such as Indonesia.

Chinese officials continue to respond to every outbreak of violence in Xinjiang with greater repression. By restricting even the peaceful practice of Islam by historically moderate Uighurs, Beijing is traveling a dangerous path that threatens domestic stability.

U.S. congressional investigators want to know what an ex-CIA operative was doing in Montenegro last fall at the time of an alleged Russian-backed coup plot against NATO’s newest member.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer Joseph Assad is celebrated in Washington for helping extract dozens of Iraqi Christians from Islamic State territory in 2015‎. Last October, days before a hotly contested national election in Montenegro, Mr. Assad flew to the tiny Balkan country that has been the subject of tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

Why Mr. Assad went is a focus of an espionage trial in Montenegro—and now a congressional inquiry in Washington.

The imbroglio is a sign that old East-versus-West spy games are alive again in Europe. Current and former U.S. and Russian officials acknowledge privately that their operatives are at work in the Balkans and in Montenegro in particular.

Montenegro’s most recent troubles began to unfold when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said it would admit the country, a setback in Moscow’s efforts to block further expansion of the military alliance. Russia immediately declared its opposition, and Western officials say it began a campaign to derail the country’s entry.

U.S. and Montenegrin officials say the campaign culminated in a Russian-backed plot that was thwarted at the last moment. The government’s opponents say the events amounted to a fake coup intended to rally the people to the ruling party’s side.

Congressional officials said they want to learn want to learn if Mr. Assad, intentionally or unwittingly, was dragged into the alleged Russian plot. Russia denies backing any coup attempt. CONTINUE AT SITE

Qatar’s extensive ties to terrorism and abetting of financiers to bolster it are well-documented.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain issued a statement designating 59 individuals and 12 organizations as having terror ties to Qatar. According to the statement, Doha “announces fighting terrorism on one hand and finances and supports and hosts different terrorist organizations on the other hand,” and harbors “terrorist and sectarian groups that aim to destabilize the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Daesh [ISIS] and Al Qaeda.”

Ironically, pressure from this new anti-Iran Muslim bloc in the Middle East has done more to call the world’s attention to Qatar’s key role in the spread of Islamist terrorism than years of cajoling on the part of previous administrations in Washington to get Doha to live up to its signed commitments.

A mere two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his first major foreign policy speech in Riyadh to delegates from dozens Muslim/Arab countries, Bahrain announced on June 5 that it was halting all flights to Qatar for being a sponsor of radical Islamist terrorists. Immediately, Saudi Arabia joined the boycott, as did the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Yemen, all of which also shut off access to Al Jazeera, the anti-American, anti-Semitic Qatari television network established in 1996 and operating since then to foment unrest across the Middle East and bolster the terrorist organization the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas.

The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and other officials in Doha fiercely denied the charge that their government has been backing terrorism, blaming a “fake news” report on the website of the state-controlled Qatar News Agency for the eruption of the Gulf crisis.

The report, which the FBI and other U.S. security agencies believe was the result of a Russian hacking attack, quoted Al Thani calling Iran an “Islamic power,” referring to Hamas as “the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and saying Qatar’s relations with Israel were “good.”

Although the report did turn out to be a hoax, Qatar’s extensive ties to terrorism and abetting of financiers to bolster it are well-documented. A Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) study, titled “Qatar and Terror Finance: Private Funders of al-Qaeda in Syria,” shows that while Doha has pretended for more than a decade to be partnering with the United States to defeat Al Qaeda, the monarchy, in fact, has taken no action whatsoever against the Qatari financiers of the terrorist organization’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, which continues to plot attacks against the West. One of the reasons that this group eluded U.S. strikes operating in Syria was that it, like America, has been fighting ISIS. Another was that it changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS or the Front for the Conquest of Syria), in an effort to distance itself from Al Qaeda. This effort was led by Qatar.