Malcolm Turnbull has dismissed reports that Australian special forces have been offered to help the Philippine government fight Islamic State-linked militants.

The defence minister, Marise Payne, is scheduled to visit the Philippines this week to discuss support from Australia to deal with the insurgency.



Australia has already deployed P3 Orion aircraft in a surveillance and intelligence-gathering role, supporting the Philippine military.

There have been reports that Australia was considering offering special forces troops, but the prime minister dismissed those suggestions on Monday.

“We stand ready to assist them in capacity-building, but the story that the ABC has consistently run and has been consistently corrected, that we have offered to send special forces, is not true,” he said.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said an offer of further support had been made, which was under consideration by the Philippine government.

“It is up to the Philippines as to the kind of support they need,” Bishop said on Monday. “We are not the only country that has offered further support for the Philippines.”

Intelligence and security experts have become increasingly concerned about the insurgency, particularly since militants seized the centre of Marawi city in May. They fear the city could be used to establish a stronger foothold for violent extremism in south-east Asia.

John Blaxland, from the Australian National University’s south-east Asia institute and strategic and defence studies centre, warned Australia needed to be “very circumspect” in the way it intervened in the Philippines.

“The key to this is being modest and discreet,” he said. “We cannot go in there with some kind of very prominent Australia presence … That would just be counter-productive.



“It would feed the propaganda. We’re the crusaders looking to back another crusader government state to oppress Muslims. It’s outrageous, but it’s what it is, so we need to be very circumspect on how we engage on this.”

Australia should seek to cut off financing to the militants through Austrac and the Australian federal police, while also limiting the movement of recruits and technology, he said.

The AFP and military could also be used in a training role, to build up the capability of their Philippine counterparts. Blaxland cautioned against deploying special forces in any combat role under current circumstances.

On Monday Turnbull re-emphasised the importance to Australia of dealing with the threat in the Philippines.

“We cannot afford to have Marawi become the Raqqa of south-east Asia. It is vitally important that the Isil insurgency in Marawi is defeated,” he told the ABC.

Cooperation with the Philippine government, headed by its president, Rodrigo Duterte, is politically fraught.

Australia’s overseas intelligence boss, Nick Warner, raised eyebrows last month when he was photographed in a “fist bump” pose with Duterte, a symbol from Duterte’s 2016 presidential campaign in which the former mayor pledged to kill thousands of criminals.

Police have killed close to 3,500 “drug personalities” since Duterte took power last July, government figures show. Rights groups fear many are alleged addicts or suspected dealers from the nation’s poorest groups. Thousands more have been murdered in unexplained circumstances, including by vigilantes.

Blaxland said Australia needed to take care in its cooperation with the Philippine government.

“We don’t want to endorse him for his actions, because they’re odious,” he said. “But we also don’t want the situation to get worse.”