Misstänkt terroristattack i Manilla Filippinerna.

MANILA — The man who set fire to a Manila casino last week, killing 37 people, was not a terrorist but a heavy gambler who was deep in debt and had lost his job, the police and relatives of the man said Sunday.

The man, identified as Jessie Carlos, 42, was a Filipino, a father of three and a former employee of the Philippines’ Department of Finance who was banned in April from entering casinos, at his family’s request, because of his gambling addiction, the authorities said.

“As we always maintained, this was not an act of terrorism,” a police spokesman, Oscar Albayalde, said at a news conference.

MANILA, Philippines – One month after the Resorts World attack in Manila, terrorism experts tell Rappler they believe the Philippines prematurely dismissed claims by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, IS, ISIL or Daesch, and asked for an investigation into its claim the Resorts World gunman was a recent convert to Islam.
The June 2 attack was “at the very minimum sanctioned – if not directed – by the Islamic State,” Veryan Khan, editorial director and founder of Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), told Rappler. TRAC is a digital intelligence repository focused on global terrorism and political violence.

“It’s very likely that the Resorts World was a terrorist operation,” said Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, cautioning authorities against dismissing ISIS claims as “propaganda.”

“It isn’t true that ISIS has a history of claiming others’ attacks as their own,” added Jones. “There’s usually a basis for it, even though their media departments don’t always get the details right.”

Khan and Jones are echoed by Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda and the head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research.

“The propaganda organs of ISIS such as Amaq exaggerate but do not falsely take credit for attacks mounted by other entities,” said Gunaratna, who, based on his study of ISIS, warned Philippine authorities of possible attacks a month before Resorts World and Marawi.
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Experts who closely track the Islamic State agree: an ISIS claim of responsibility usually means the attack might have been planned, funded and directed by ISIS or inspired by the group's sophisticated propaganda.

On June 8, the Filipino ISIS operative in Marawi posted again, claiming Carlos adopted the Muslim name “Khair” after converting to Islam 4 months earlier.

"Our connections in Manila 1 week before the attack we already know his plan to destroy the casino because it is HARAM and making his life difficult because of the practices of gambling by the kufar [non-believers]," reads the message.

"That is why 10 minutes after his go signal to us we already posted a 'LONEWOLF attack was conducted by the soldier of the caliphate.'"

Semion Almujaheed is the Telegram account used by this Filipino ISIS operative. It gained credibility by providing daily updates of the ongoing battles in Marawi. This account posted the photos and video of the Marawi Catholic priest held hostage on May 30, and was first to claim the Resorts World attack for ISIS within minutes of the first gunshot.

Almujaheed was also the first to refer to Carlos as a shaheed, someone who dies deliberately for his faith.