Sabah is a flashpoint for Islamist extremism and separatism in Southeast Asia

28 April 2023

The impoverished and remote Sulu islands in the southern Philippines could become a new staging point for the resurgence of separatist Islamists in Southeast Asia, despite a string of recent counter-terrorism victories. With the US and the Philippines holding the largest-ever joint military drills in the South China Sea — emphasising the region’s geopolitical significance — the risk of renewed militant violence, particularly against the neighbouring Malaysian state of Sabah, requires urgent attention from the international community.

Militants have long operated in the Sulu region, including extremists linked to international Islamist movements. February alone saw multiple clashes between Philippine police and Islamist extremists, which include the Abu Sayyaf group, the most prominent Islamist separatist group in the Philippines affiliated with the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). For years, ISIS has attempted to carve out a stronghold in Southeast Asia using local proxies operating out of the Sulu region. But they have been increasingly thwarted by joint Malaysian and Philippine efforts.

The Bangsamoro peace process — started in 2014 to resolve decades of conflict between separatists in the Muslim-majority Moro region of the southern Philippines and the central government — has ushered in a successful transition to self-rule for the majority-Muslim areas. Philippine police and military operations have also weakened Islamist activities. Although the reach of Muslim separatist movements appears largely quelled, these gains are extremely fragile. Blurred lines between the wide variety of militant movements across the region (involving separatists, Islamists, and outright terrorists) could converge to drive a renewal of violence. As local disillusionment with the Bangsamoro peace process grows amid rising economic problems and political corruption, the international community should work with the two most relevant regional powers, Malaysia and the Philippines, to revitalise the peace process based on a new vision for inclusive prosperity.

A history of violence

The first major outbreak of violence in Sabah occurred in April 2000, when Abu Sayyaf militants from the Sulu archipelago stormed Sabah’s resort island Sipadan, kidnapping 21 tourists and resort workers leading to a six-month hostage crisis. Although they were eventually released unharmed, the crisis highlighted Sabah’s vulnerability. The following decade saw a wave of kidnappings before a new crisis erupted in 2013 when Sabah was invaded by over 200 armed followers of Jamalul Kiram III, the late self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, in an ultimately failed attempt to enforce an ancestral claim over Sabah. The resulting clashes left 71 dead. Complicating matters further, the incursion was condemned by Muedzul Lail Tan Kiram, who also claimed to be the Sultan of Sulu and who described Jamalul as “one of the many self-styled and illegitimate Sultans of Sulu”.

Both the Malaysian and Philippine governments should be careful not to allow pressure from these disparate groups to create discord which could unravel the critical progress made so far through the Bangsamoro peace process.

The invasion of Sabah’s Lahad Datu district showed how a longstanding territorial dispute over ownership of Sabah between Malaysia and the Philippines, two leading members of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), threatened to provoke conflict. Since then, there have been sporadic outbreaks of violence. From 2014 to 2016, Abu Sayyaf launched a wave of piracy attacks off the Sabah coastline involving further kidnappings. By 2017, evidence emerged of ISIS using Sabah as a transit point to funnel jihadists to Abu Sayyaf’s stronghold in the Philippines’ Marawi City.

Ongoing security risks

Two years ago, further threats to Sabah emerged amid intelligence reports confirming that a Philippine senior local government official had hosted a secret meeting with 19 mayors. They discussed plans to recruit 600 men into a “Royal Sulu Army” ready to invade Sabah and revive the Sultanate of Sulu. Although the followers of the alleged heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu are a separate group from Muslim separatists, there is also unsettling evidence of an overlap between Muslim separatists, Islamist extremists, and Philippine militants who believe in the ancient Sultanate’s claim over Malaysia’s Sabah.

For instance, Nur Misuari, the founder of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) — a Muslim separatist movement in the Philippines designated as a terrorist group by the government of Malaysia — declared his support for the Lahad Datu invasion in 2013. Several followers of Misuari were suspected to have joined Jamalul Kiram’s forces in Sabah during the incursion. Former Philippine military general Florencio Fianza argued that Misuari most likely helped instigate the invasion “as a last ditch effort” to derail the Bangsamoro peace negotiations brokered by Malaysia between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, an MNLF splinter group.

Although the MNLF has distanced itself from Islamist extremists, Misuari has high-level ties to them. In August 2020, he was caught flying on a private jet to Davao City with notorious Abu Sayyaf commander Abduljihad “Edang” Susukan, a terrorist wanted for murder and kidnapping. Reports showed that Misuari had brought Susukan there to receive medical assistance. Abu Sayyaf remains active in the Sulu region where military forces continue to be deployed to counter terrorist operations. Still, the Philippine military has been highly successful in degrading Abu Sayyaf’s military capabilities, and the group is no longer the same threat as five years ago.

The invisible powder-keg

There are compelling reasons to suspect that these successes could be rapidly overturned. The US State Department’s latest annual country report on terrorism released earlier in February warns that despite progress, ISIS remains the deadliest threat in the Philippines, making the country a major target destination for foreign terrorist fighters. Meanwhile, the complex causes and consequences of conflict in terms of marginalisation, rampant poverty and insecurity remain unresolved, leading many locals to become disillusioned with the Bangsamoro peace process. The blurred lines between followers of the proclaimed heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu, MNLF, and Islamist extremist groups highlight how these issues can converge to lead to a resurgence of militancy. Particularly separatists disgruntled by the peace process could exploit the moral cause of the lapsed Sulu Sultanate to derail the political transition, which in turn could embolden jihadists.

One surprising factor that could heighten this risk is a major international legal case between the nine alleged Sulu Sultanate heirs and the government of Malaysia, which resulted in a USD 15 billion award against Malaysia on behalf of the heirs in 2022. The Sulu heirs say Malaysia owes them the money for violating an 1878 treaty involving the territory of Sabah. Their legal case is financed by unidentified Western investors organised through the London-based litigation financing firm Therium. Although these investors will take the majority of profits from the multibillion-dollar claim, the petitioners would still receive millions. In March, French bailiffs turned up outside the Malaysian embassy in Paris seeking to enforce a seizure order to confiscate Malaysian government-owned properties. Previously, oil and gas assets in Luxembourg owned by Malaysia’s state energy company were seized on behalf of the petitioners.

With various forces in Sulu actively considering another military invasion of Sabah, there is a heightened risk of revived militancy in the region. The risk is particularly acute given the evidence of murky links between followers of heirs of the Sultanate and terrorist groups, including pro-ISIS networks. The Malaysian government has recently designated one of the petitioners in this case, Fuad Kiram, a terrorist based on alleged links to the forces involved in the 2013 Lahad Datu incursion. That year, The Manila Times noted that Fuad’s claim to the Sulu sultanate was endorsed by MNLF chair Nur Misuari, who has ties to Abu Sayyaf and who supported the Lahad Datu invasion.

Mitigating the risks and looking ahead

Lawyers for the petitioners have rejected the claim that the Sulu heirs are supporting extremists through legal means, stating that such insinuations are “reckless and irresponsible”. Yet if the ruling is enforced and the petitioners receive the money, what safeguards would prevent potentially millions of dollars from spreading to separatist or terrorist networks? Given the evidence of links between followers of the late Sultan of Sulu and militant groups including Nur Misuari’s MNLF and Abu Sayyaf, this is an urgent line of inquiry.

A new influx of funds would be a potential game-changer for separatist movements. Regional governments will therefore want to look deeper into the overlap between militant networks planning another invasion of Sabah on behalf of the Sultanate of Sulu, separatist movements operating in the Philippines, and Islamist groups like Abu Sayyaf. The risk of an international court case inadvertently emboldening regional extremists is a live one that we ignore at our own peril.

Both the Malaysian and Philippine governments should be careful not to allow pressure from these disparate groups to create discord which could unravel the critical progress made so far through the Bangsamoro peace process. The biggest priority should be revitalising the peace process with a renewed vision of solving the underlying causes of discontent: poverty and marginalisation. Given the region’s strategic importance, the US should play a much stronger role in supporting the peace process and guiding it toward a vision of regional unity and prosperity, without which the spectres of separatism and extremism will continue to lie in wait for the next opportunity to strike.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author Biography

Dr Maurizio Geri is a former senior NATO analyst who has worked at the NATO Allied Command Transformation in the US, NATO Southern Hub in Italy, and NATO HQ in Belgium. He previously served as an analyst in the Italian Defence General Staff. He is a recipient of the Marie Curie Global Fellowship for research on EU-NATO cooperation against Russian hybrid warfare in the context of the energy-resources-climate security nexus. He is also an associate fellow at South Asia Democratic Forum, and the author of Ethnic Minorities in Democratizing Muslim Countries: Turkey and Indonesia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/SIMEON CELI/ PPD.