‘Wake-up call’: US admiral warns of ISIS danger in Pacific

‘The spread of Islamic State to the Philippines should be a “wake-up call” for US allies in the Pacific and require a new regional partnership, according to the admiral in charge of US Pacific Command (USPACOM).
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters from Syria and Iraq are providing resources and ideology to homegrown radicals on the island of Mindanao, resulting in the weeks-long battle with the Philippines military in the city of Marawi, Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr. said in Australia on Wednesday.
“Marawi is a wake-up call for every nation in the Indo-Asia Pacific,” Harris said at an Australian Strategic Policy Institute event in Brisbane, Queensland. “These terrorists are using combat tactics that we’ve seen in the Middle East to kill in the city of Marawi, in Mindanao, the first time ISIS-inspired forces have banded together to fight on this kind of scale.”’
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