ISIL-SEA, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in South-East Asia is declared a global terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council’s 1267 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee added Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in South-East Asia to its list of terrorist organizations last week.
According to a press release from the UN, “on January 27, 2023, the Security Council Committee pertaining to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011), and 2253 (2015) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida, and associated individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities approved the addition of the entry to its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities. Following the inclusion in this list, along with freezing the assets of the global terrorist organization, a travel ban and arms embargo have been imposed on the organization’s people, set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 2610 (2021) and adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.
The ISIL-SEA organization is also known as The Islamic State East Asia Division and Daulatul Islamiyah Waliatul Mashriq. Isnilon Hapilon formed ISIL-SEA in June 2016. They link it to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Notably, Hapilon was the leader of the Abu Sayyaf, an ISIL-affiliated group. He was killed in the year 2017.
1267 The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee consist of all 15 members of the Security Council. It takes its decisions by consensus. This committee prepares an annual report on the activities of terrorist organizations. Also oversees the implementation of sanctions measures on designated individuals and entities.
Earlier, on January 16, the committee had included Abdul Rehman Makki, deputy chief of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, in the list of global terrorists.
According to the list, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in South-East Asia (ISIL-SEA) is connected to ISIL because it “participates in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of,” “supplies, sells or transfers arms and related materiel to,” “recruits for,” “otherwise supports acts or activities of,” and “either owned or controlled, directly or indirectly” by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant(ISIL), listed as Al-Qaida in Iraq and Abu Sayyaf Group.
The terrorist activities of ISIL-SEA
ISIL released a video showing terrorists swearing allegiance to it in the Philippines in June 2016. In the video, terrorists urged other combatants to join them and aid ISIL’s operations in the area, which were being led by the now-deceased Isnilon Hapilon. According to reports, some elements of the Abu Sayyaf Group communicate and coordinate with ISIL-Southeast Asia, as well as take part in occasionally ISIL-claimed assaults.
Since its founding, ISIS-Southeast Asia has carried out a number of assaults, including:
The organisation took responsibility for the twin explosions in Jolo, Sulu province, Philippines, in August 2020, which left 15 people dead and 75 others injured.
Five persons were killed and nine others were injured in a suicide bombing that the organisation claimed it carried out on a Philippine military facility in the southern Philippines in June 2019.
The organisation took credit for a pair of bombings in January 2019 that killed 20 people and injured at least 82. The first explosion targeted the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, the Philippines, while the second was directed at first responders who raced to aid the injured.
At least 11 individuals were killed in a suicide attack on a Philippine army base in Lamitan City, Basilan, the Philippines, in July 2018, according to the group’s claim of responsibility.
