By David Choi

It’s becoming clear that ISIS is losing the battle on the home
front. In fact, it’s not only losing out on a huge source of
revenue from
oil smuggling, but major campaigns by coalition forces are
underway to root out its remaining bastions in Iraq and Syria.

Although this may be cause for celebration, US officials are
more concerned with what comes afterward. “At some point there is going to be a terrorist diaspora,”

said FBI Director James B. Comey at a cybersecurity
conference. “Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to
die on the battlefield.”

This supposed migration of militants lends itself to some
credence in light of a recent
report by Harry Sarfo, a detained Islamic State recruit. An ISIS official claimed “that they have loads of people living
in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the
European people,” Sarfo
said from a maximum-security prison in northern Germany. “And
that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.”

According to US officials, however, it’s not only the
West that should brace for ISIS’s relocation. Defense News

reports that, in a recent speech, US Pacific Command’s
commander, Adm. Harry Harris, expressed concern for an often
overlooked region of the world.

“Regrettably, I believe that ISIL is also trying to rebalance to
the Indo-Asia-Pacific,” Harris said.

This statement comes on the heels of recent terrorist attacks in
Asian countries with large Muslim populations, such as
Bangladesh. One of these attacks, a 10-hour siege in an upscale
restaurant, ended
tragically when 20 out of the 35 hostages, many of them
foreigners, were killed in the beginning of July.

A
US Marine stands guard as a truck passes on April 29, 2002, in
the Philippines.
David Greedy/Getty
Images

“As their revenue and territory shrinks in Syria and Iraq, you
could see a wave of fighters going back to the Philippines and
Indonesia,” claims
Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. “That can be greatly destabilizing to governments.”

Even more worrisome is the fact that existing Islamic militant
groups in the region, such as the Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf, have
pledged their loyalty to ISIS, even going so far as to
state on Twitter that if a potential recruit was unable to
travel to Syria, then they should “join the mujahedeen in the
Philippines.”

In order to combat this growing threat, analysts offer a crucial
element for its solution: a multinational effort led by the US.

“The US has a huge role in preventing this because it is the lead
element in the global struggle against terrorism,” Sanderson

told Defense News.

A
US Marine instructs a Philippine soldier on how to use a sniper
rifle in the Philippines.
Gabriel
Mistral/Getty Images

Although the US has had a military presence in Southeast Asia,
such as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines
(JSOTF-P), it was officially
deactivated last year after 13 years of service. This element
of up to 600 US Navy SEALs, US Marine Corps and US Army operators
had the traditional special-forces role of training Philippine
commandos to combat terrorist elements in the region, such as Abu
Sayyaf.

But even without the presence of an autonomous task force such as
JSOTF-P, Harris still believes that there’s hope for the region.

“To halt the Islamic State’s cancerous spread in Asia, we can’t
work alone. We must work together,” he
outlined in his speech. “Thankfully, Japan and many other
like-minded nations have joined the counter-ISIL coalition.
Together, we can — and will — eradicate this disease