Has The Islamist Insurgency Been Defeated In The Philippines?

FYI, We Just Won A War In The Philippines -- War Is Boring

Did you know the U.S. was at war in the Philippines?

The U.S. military battled Islamists in the Philippines beginning in 1899, when the islands — the spoils of the Spanish-American War — became an American territory. The fighting raged in fits and starts for the next hundred years, mostly in the southern region of Mindanao.

By 2001 Mindanao was a haven for a shifting alliance of Islamic groups dominated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf — the latter two Al Qaeda affiliates. In December that year Jemaah Islamiyah plotted an attack on the U.S. embassy in Singapore, but Singaporean authorities intervened.

Remote and rugged, the southern Philippines were the tropical analogue of the mountains and deserts favored by Islamic militants elsewhere. “Pretty much nothing but jungle and mountains and rice paddies,” is how Rocky Zeender, a former Special Forces soldier who spent three years in the region, described the terrain. “It was extremely dense jungle, extremely dense forest, very steep terrain and very difficult to travel, sometimes impossible to travel, by vehicle, only by foot.”

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My Comment: I do not share David Axe's optimistic assessment that the war is over .... but his posting provides a good summary and analysis of the conflict.