The hidden story behind the Maute Group and Islamic State

The waving of Islamic State’s black flag by the Maute militants could signal their support for an Islamic caliphate promoted by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – “a state where the Arab and non-Arab, the white man and black man, the easterner and westerner are all brothers … Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis. The Earth is Allah’s.” But, is this enough evidence to conclude that IS has found a new army in Marawi committed to establishing a caliphate under brutal Sharia law?
Does the presence of a handful of Indonesians and Malaysians among the Maute militants signify the same internationalisation witnessed among IS forces in Iraq and Syria since June 2014? How easy is it for foreign jihadis to enter Marawi and join the Maute band that is now battling government forces? And perhaps, most important of all, how much support does the vision of an Islamic caliphate have among the people of Marawi and its province of Lanao del Sur?
It is important to find the answers to these questions so as to gain a better understanding of the events that led to the protracted war in Marawi that has so far caused hundreds of deaths and displaced almost all of the city’s more than 200,000 residents.
Notwithstanding its pre-existing formal designation as an Islamic City, Marawi seems an unlikely place in which to found an IS front.
Among all the ethnic groups of Mindanao, it is probably the Moros of Lanao – the business-minded Maranao – who enjoy the most extensive connection with modernity. Maranao traders dominate the retail business in cellphones and electronic gadgets, pearl jewellery and imitation branded clothes, at Manila’s shopping malls. They may be found in almost every big town of the country plying their made-in-China wares at weekend and night markets.The Maute family itself is known to be prosperous and influential, with properties in Mindanao and Manila. It is common for big Mindanao clans like the Mautes to maintain a private army, just as it is customary for Moro men to own guns. Seven Maute sons are known to lead the family’s private army. 
Joseph Franco of Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies asserts that the Maute family first claimed links to IS after it got embroiled in a conflict with Mayor Dimnatang Pansar of the nearby town of Butig over public works contracts. This dispute led to a full-blown rido, or clan war. Franco says that the Mautes used the IS connection mainly to “spook and coerce the Pansars”.
This is a fascinating angle.  It offers an insight into the complex mix of motives that fuel political violence and link local family feuds to the global circuits of terrorism. “That tactical use of terrorist imagery took on a life of its own. Now we have this Maute Group, who call themselves IS Ranao,” Franco told Reuters.
I doubt the people of Marawi were aware of the IS in their midst before May 23. And, quite possibly, neither was the military. Yet today, Islamic State is on everyone’s lips. Its capacity to wage a sustained urban guerrilla war and to inflict huge casualties on government forces has made the Mautes the most dreaded extremist group in Mindanao. The unintended consequence of unleashing the power of martial law to defeat them is to give this ragtag army a stage on which they can prove their fighting prowess and to which they can draw jihadis in quest of meaning, a cause, or a place in paradise.
It brings no gratification to say this. But one can imagine how the opening of war fronts everywhere pleases those who recoil against the anaesthetisation of politics through peace, and dream of the establishment of a just and better order through permanent strife.