MANILA, Philippines—An official from the Department of National Defense assured that there are no Islamic Filipinos who joined Jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham.
Speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to media, the official said there are no validated reports that 200 Muslim Filipinos went to Iraq to join ISIS.
He added that the figure of 200 Muslims are not Filipinos, but Australians.
“We don’t have reports pertaining to that, there are no validated reports,” he said. “From what I heard there are 200 Australian Muslims fighting side-by-side with ISIS.”
“The Filipinos we have there (Iraq and Syria) are overseas Filipino workers,” he explained.
He added that Filipinos in Iraq are working in government facilities and are not fighting with the Jihadists.
ISIS has plagued Iraq that resulted in the intra-Islam fighting in the country.
Also, the Defense official said the 200 number is too far-fetched as he assured that the government is strictly monitoring Filipinos leaving for Iraq.
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