For three months now, the Philippines military has been battling militants affiliated with Islamic State (IS) in the city of Marawi in the Mindanao region. Like many armed forces in the region, the Philippines’ was designed to fight conventional warfare, not urban guerrilla warfare as is being witnessed in Marawi. But the Thai Army should realise that the battle in Marawi is a totally different kind of conflict compared to that in Thailand’s far South, Indonesia’s Aceh and East Timor. The group in Marawi are affiliated with the Islamic State, and their conflict is global and ideological in nature. If so, shouldn’t it try harder to change the paradigm for the conflict in the far South where nearly 7,000 people, mostly local Muslims, have been killed?

Source: The Nation Bangkok July 29, 2017 18:00 UTC