visit our website dr. oziel never thought he'd come out alive he was sure he would die here buried under the ruins of mirali city. bus in a little bit of what will you go at night i hear noises and have nightmares. i keep thinking someone will take revenge on me and kill me. my conscience won't let me sleep because of what i've done here and in that in on this one not even so much.

as a former commander of the so-called islamic state he fought against the philippine army the islamic state had designated murali city to be its future caliphate and asia. for the 1st time since the end of the war 2 years ago as well has returned to the city. and the devil in general my men were positioned here in these buildings. and. i had 3 or 4 armed men what each of those houses keeping watch. on the other. you had to run past in the street to avoid the snipers. they were positioned on the roofs up there. alone. into what. we put together explosives in this mosque here.

that there. that's the passageway to the basement. here is where we kept the hostages. if we use this card to supply the fighters with any nation. to practically anywhere in the city. the i s had promised him a decent earning and a good life for his family after 6 weeks of fighting he still hadn't seen a single pay so he surrendered the state forces offered him the equivalent of 430 euros to give up fighting now he's been released. this is i regret what i've done. you can't trust the islamic state. they promise you a better life but in the end the only thing you can expect from them is death.

may 2017 the islamic state was losing ground in iraq and syria and so it tried to expand to asia. on the island of mindanao muslim separatists had been fighting for regional autonomy for decades. many of them joined the jihadist abu sayyaf group and swore allegiance to the i.r.s. . heavily armed and financed by the ransom money they had been extorting for years they took over murali city the largest muslim city in the country. untrained in urban warfare it took the philippine armed forces 5 months to recapture it. in this brutal battle alone 1000 jihad is 47 civilians and 168 soldiers lost their lives. one 3rd of the city was laid to waste.

since the end of the conflict in 2017 life in the intact part of murali city has resumed but its 200000 inhabitants fear fresh attacks should the jihadists return. today what was supposed to become the asian capital of the caliphate is mostly a long line of checkpoints. where your papers if you're at home. don't forget them next time. the government has sent 2000 soldiers and 3000 police officers to the region to increase the pressure on the jihadists who still haven't surrendered. the police have been searching for them for years. those who turn themselves in are 1st brought to the army's regional headquarters at the run now military camp here he.

these 3 former i asked fighters surrendered a month ago. as the battles engulfed mirali city they informed the ins of the army's whereabouts. what did you do before you joined the i.a.s. . you know i was a farmer. me too i was a farmer in manila. in india but here families think about you having joined the i.r.s. . they're angry very angry they can't understand. our life just isn't the same anymore. one of my family treats me like an outcast a member of their. family's afraid of you. do

you know anyone still hiding in the city. who hasn't surrendered. are you sure i don't know. about you know what happens to them if we catch them in the south and. you know have 160. former fight their school fought here in seeking it some of them are sympathizers so. first goal a process. to try to get involved in the seeds are in the. thick of it. let's say for murder as for straight that murder. in jail whew. over to the local government may or to the governor or. back in their community so

already. 30 percent of. the population survives on less than. the majority of. ideological. terrorists recruited. entire families. from that. we can't. and we can't. past and they fear revenge.

and their 13 year old son nor owned a shop before the war broke out. those son seemingly joined the i asked in 2017 they promised my husband that if we did they would pay off our debts well my family. at that time we owed our distributors over 15000 euros. or maybe even that we spent our days with them praying and training with weapons it was all for nothing. so why the money by money as soon as we realized they had no intention of paying off our debts we decided to turn ourselves in. and we never saw a single pay so. i wish i could own a shop again so i could support my family. but i can't because i have to remain in hiding. if my former suppliers find me or if the i.r.s.

finds me i'm a dead man. i'd like to finish my education and then join the military to fight the terrorists. and. to gather new recruits the i as preyed upon those with a lower education and a more trustful nature. one month before the fighting broke out 16 year old found himself in voluntarily in the jihad ists ranks. had forced him to work for them he stayed exempt from punishment after he successfully fled. he's the only one who dares speak openly in front of the camera. one to one get out of here go away. the moment.

when. my uncle fires all send me tomorrow always city to learn arabic. but once i got there i realized he had meant something entirely different. i was with the i.a.s. i met them. one of the men was dressed in black. he told me that my uncle had sold me for 400 euros. and. they took me to a training camp in p.r. . i stayed there for 14 days and learned how to fight. for. one night around 2 am i pretended to get up to use the bathroom. that's how i managed to escape while everyone else was asleep on the. last. day abdul is free but all the others he met at the camp or dead. for the past 2 years he's been living with his uncle the same uncle who sold him to the i.r.s.

. but by now he's forgiven him. by and i mean this is where we live i mean. this is our kitchen. and this is a corner. but there she had been. had not only sold his nephew to the terrorists but even his own son. one day he was well dressed men showed up and offered me money if i agreed to let the boys study abroad so i did but i never suspected that they were from the oh yes . they gave me 800 euros you know 400 for my son and 400 for my nephew i'm getting. you know. a few weeks later

a friend told me they were being forced to work for the i.r.s. . somebody sizes. and i view the 1st i didn't tell my wife anything and i was so ashamed. feisal swears he was tricked but his 10 smile makes us wonder. his wife sheila had no part in the decision she left him but one year later she came back and forgave him. in that he didn't tell me at 1st that he had sold them when he did it was too late because he'd already taken the money. by my son kyle he was just 10 years old and i mean when we discovered he was being forced to fight in morocco we city we were panicked . there was shootings and bombings throughout the entire city. in

this dad or. 2 weeks after the siege began i contacted the rescue forces a lot and i found my son. had been hiding and was completely traumatised. his eyes were like that i like yeah. my it's my memory when he came home or even the slightest noise would frighten him. he would run into a corner and start crying. and i mean we didn't know what to do and all did was cry. he could still hear the shootings in the explosions. yeah he never recovered and yeah he stopped and eventually he died. now my face yeah. many were tricked by the i.r.s. but some joined voluntarily. but. one of them was

fired a former i.r.s. recruiter. still only 18 she's already a war criminal. for 350 euros a month she sent dozens of men to their deaths she knows she faces a life behind bars if she were to turn herself in. but she did agree to an interview. she hopes that the young people of mirali city might learn from her story. i spent one year with the islamic state. at 1st i only recruited people from my circles of friends. if i didn't know them i would try to make friends with them and gain their trust. then i would tell them about our organization and explain to them that we were fighting for islam. and for muslims rights.

in total i recruited about 35 years. ago. at 1st i offered them 175 euros. but then after the siege began i offered them $400.00 euros. i really thought i was doing the right thing. now i regret what i did but then having. i have brought shame to my family the land of 1000 is it on but the net income me. about the whole i don't want to go to jail and so i'm still so young. i wish i could finish my education and get a degree was someone i thought forced. but the people of my were always city are furious they blame those who have

returned from the fighting for killing their own brothers and for bringing shame to the region to them it makes no difference if they joined i.a.s. of their own free will or were exploited or even manipulated. unlike in iraq or syria in this part of southeast asia the islamic state has never been able to rely on a large ethnic group most here are catholic. the hutchie haroun is the imaam at one of the few mosques of the city it was spared during the fighting. he speaks on behalf of his community and i've never been in their children again those men in black. luggage they destroyed our country and they destroyed our city. they killed their own people.

first they beheaded them. i believe. they even beheaded policemen and soldiers. i could never forgive them. we will never forgive them for what they did to us. the philippine republic is trying to avoid a new bloodbath on the island at all costs president to tatters government encourages peace and national reconciliation. the army recruits former high ranking i as fighters and offers to forgo their sentence if they provide vital information in return. even join the i.s.i. out of conviction but 6 months ago he turned himself in. he had been the right hand of aboud dar leader of the i.a.s. in southeast asia with a 100000 euro bounty on his head. this

was our leader. i was like a son to him. i was his bodyguard. i went wherever he went. thanks to the information even provided darwish tracked down and killed. since then this was the 1st time the young man dared to speak in public. and i've gotten a level no no delayed i was recruited on july 10th 2018. the i.s. wanted new recruits to continue the fight against the philippine army. i had to wait 2 months before they finally took me and. then i became dollars right hand man

. he gave me money to him. the logistics and get food and weapons. you know i was in my bed was right next to his. we had together starved together were bitten by mosquitoes and suffered the cold. one day i decided to escape with 3 others. but there had been too many innocent victims. and i wanted to help the army. that's why i guarded the soldiers to our camp it was hidden up in the mountains. but when we got there nobody was there. we followed their tracks and found him in a nearby village. shots were fired and daughter was killed. if the i.r.s. found out what i do now they'd kill me but they wouldn't shoot me with

a gun they behead me with a machete i mean these are again. no one knows if even ever received the 100000 euros reward. so far $1600.00 former i.r.s. fighters have surrendered their encouraged to join a social and economic reintegration program it was launched a year ago and is headed by the military. 8 kilometers from the royal we city in the village of run i.e. in the fields have taken over where ruins used to be. here former i his fighters are taking part in the peace crops program a few weeks of field work in the peaceful countryside to help them leave the i asked behind. what are you planting. who shoots. it up and these are beings. like those over there. but i'm going to say though yeah. how far are they spaced apart not far enough in some of the spaces are you

planted too many. these 2 rows are good but don't throw anything in the middle. if you will look at the profile of those who were a group that made the islamic state we would see that most of them are actually farmers and in this setting we would really understand that if you have no irrigation if you do not have the technology and the competence to farm didn't probably it will be very interesting for you to join the i.a.s. what we're trying to do here is to social economic to the empower the community inside conflict ridden areas so they would have enough capacity to sustain on a daily basis by doing this activity by doing the farming activity we already do sing their vulnerability to very truth in exchange for food money or other systems . so you know. what you have in that stick

and how divided into equal rose. shouldn't be too close or too far apart. but what i'm going to get. on the go and then you put the seed into the grooves the grain you say they say so and you can go ahead and plant several at a time. you know just trying to keep them 2 and a half they metres apart. make sure to pay attention to the roots more good that the us about because. there are 3 farms like this one on the outskirts of mirali city every day roughly 100 x. fighters and their families come here between 5 and 9 in the morning before the heat becomes unbearable. alex is the most recent member to join the program he's only been here a week. alex is a former fighter and he was also among those who joined the siege of morale we did 1700 he surrendered to government forces and he actually has one of his sons killed

inside the main battle area. and. i have 6 children. and the boy i joined the idea because we didn't have anything to eat. and i regret that now. it got me nowhere and it destroyed my life. i like farming with the others helps me think about something else for a while. i mean i think i hope that this way i can offer my family a better and happier life. a leg enemy a 1000000. all those who have returned from the fighting dream of a new future a new life even after having done unspeakable things.

but the ruins of merari city still bear witness to their victims. reconstruction is slow and leaves behind ugly wounds in which the i.a.s. can fester. some say that i as recruiters on the other side of lake lanao are now offering families 3000 euros if they join.

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write it's helped people cause we did a little. as a journalist i often call cults focus in that bios of the less local. actors factory they buy chicken dollar for all those jobs finding out what people are talking about what is moving them. my father taught me how to ask uncomfortable questions about my country and about to board. that is what i keep doing today is that my name is that he and i were at the top of the. big. change the world. the cry for freedom and the fight for freedom were always accompanied by music listening. to transcend dreams bring us all

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