'They Fooled Us': The Men Who Left ISIS in the Philippines (Marawi City) by Carmela Fonbuena - The Guardian
As Isis’s last stronghold in Syria burns, half a world away in the Philippines are men who know how it feels to watch a caliphate crumble.
If Alex could turn back time, he would. He wouldn’t have languished in Marawi City with his 13-year-old son in May 2017 and they wouldn’t have taken the guns the Isis-linked Maute Group handed out on the day that marked the start of a five-month conflict that destroyed the city.
“They said ‘they’re the ones fighting for the true jihad. We’re going to fight to the death to defend our religion and we will reap our rewards in the afterlife,” 38-year-old Alex* tells the Guardian, in one of the first sit-down interviews with a former Isis fighter in the Philippines.
His son died in the ensuing siege. He also lost relatives and friends.
Alex’s testimony comes as Isis fighters in the Syrian town of Baghuz are trapped by advancing Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Syrian regime and Russia. The last days of Isis in the Middle East have finally come.
But in the Philippines the memory of war is still fresh…