Maute Group

Also known as: Islamic State of Lanao · Dawlah Islamiya · Dawlah Islamiyah · IS-Ranao · Islamic State of Lanao Province

Definition

The Maute Group — known since 2019 as the Islamic State of Lanao and commonly called Dawlah Islamiya — is the Filipino Islamist militant group founded around 2012 by the brothers Omar (“Omarkhayam”) Maute and Abdullah Maute in their home province of Lanao del Sur, drawn largely from former guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and organized around the extended family of their parents, Cayamora and Farhana Maute. (Wikipedia — Maute group) The group swore allegiance to the Islamic State in April 2015, fought the Philippine Army at Butig in February and again in November 2016, and was blamed for the bombing of the Roxas night market in Davao City on September 2, 2016, which killed fifteen people. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — 2016 Davao City bombing)

On May 23, 2017, the group — fighting alongside the Abu Sayyaf faction of Isnilon Hapilon, the Islamic State’s recognized emir for the Philippines — seized the center of Marawi City, opening the five-month Siege of Marawi and prompting Proclamation No. 216, the martial-law declaration over Mindanao issued the same day and treated in this wiki’s separate entries on the siege and the proclamation. (Wikipedia — Siege of Marawi, Wikipedia — Proclamation No. 216) The founding generation died in and around the battle — Abdullah Maute in an airstrike on August 7, 2017; Omar Maute with Hapilon on October 16, 2017; and, by the military’s December 2017 account, all seven Maute brothers dead — and the United States designated the group a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 by notice published February 27, 2018, under the aliases “Maute Group,” “IS-Ranao,” and “Islamic State of Lanao.” (Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute, Wikipedia — Isnilon Hapilon, Federal Register) Remnants regrouped under the Dawlah Islamiya name into the 2020s, a survival recorded in the public file as designation and prosecution rather than as settled fact. (Wikipedia — Maute group)

Identities

Source	Identifier	URL
Wikipedia	Maute group	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maute_group
Wikidata	Maute group (Q24910076)	https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24910076
DBpedia	Maute_group	https://dbpedia.org/page/Maute_group
ProductOntology	N/A	N/A
Wiktionary	Maute (Maranao proper noun — “a surname”)	https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Maute
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A (no authorized heading located in this entry’s verification)	N/A
MeSH	N/A	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A	N/A
Google Scholar	Maute Group Islamic State of Lanao Dawlah Islamiya Omar Maute Abdullah Maute Butig 2016 Davao City bombing September 2 2016 Marawi siege 2017 Isnilon Hapilon Abu Dar terrorist designation Executive Order 13224	N/A
ConceptNet	N/A	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A	N/A

Also Known As

Islamic State of Lanao
Dawlah Islamiya
Dawlah Islamiyah
IS-Ranao
Islamic State of Lanao Province

Examples and Analogies

A family firm of jihad: the group was built less like an army than like a clan enterprise — two brothers at its head, the father alleged by investigators to have financed it, the mother described in the record as its financier and recruiter — so that its decapitation in 2017 was also the near-extinction of a single lineage. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute)
From MILF splinter to IS province: the brothers left a Moro secessionist movement then negotiating peace, pledged bay’ah to the Islamic State in April 2015, and converted a family network into the local franchise of a transnational one — the path by which a Lanao clan became “the Islamic State of Lanao.” (Wikipedia — Maute group)
Butig as rehearsal: the February and November 2016 fights for the brothers’ home town — the Army capturing a militant headquarters, the group briefly seizing the town itself — previewed in miniature the seizure of Marawi six months later, the escalation this wiki’s Siege of Marawi entry documents at full scale. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Siege of Marawi)
Verified documentary data (each figure attributed to its record):
Founding: about 2012 in the standard account, with the group’s dates of operation given as 2013–present and Abdullah Maute’s own article founding it “around 2013” — the variance examined below
Allegiance: bay’ah to the Islamic State sworn April 2015, together with Ansar Khalifa Philippines
Butig, February 2016: the group’s first clash with the Philippine Army, ending in the capture of its headquarters in Butig, Lanao del Sur
April 2016: six sawmill workers abducted in Butig; two beheaded — the episode for which Farhana Maute and co-accused were later convicted
Davao City bombing, September 2, 2016: 15 killed (the toll reaching fifteen on September 13 when an injured pregnant woman died) and about 70 wounded at the Roxas night market; three men linked to the group arrested October 4, 2016; eleven convicted of murder and attempted murder by a Taguig court on September 29, 2020, each sentenced to reclusión perpetua
November 2016: suspects linked to the group arrested over a bomb found near the United States embassy in Manila; the seizure of Butig town for roughly a week
Marawi, May 23 – October 23, 2017: the joint attack with Hapilon’s Abu Sayyaf faction; militant strength in the city estimated by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in June 2017 at about 500, roughly 260 of them Maute fighters
Deaths of the leaders: Abdullah Maute killed August 7, 2017 in an airstrike, the death proclaimed by Islamic State sympathizers and announced by the military September 4; Omar Maute and Isnilon Hapilon killed in the pre-dawn fight of October 16, Hapilon’s identity confirmed by FBI DNA matching announced October 21; Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. reported in December 2017 that all seven Maute brothers were dead
The parents: Cayamora Maute arrested at a Davao City checkpoint June 6, 2017 and died in custody at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig, on August 27, 2017, of hypertension and diabetes; Farhana Maute (Ominta Romato Maute) arrested June 9, 2017, convicted on May 15, 2024 by the Taguig City Regional Trial Court, Branch 266, of financing terrorism and sentenced to reclusión temporal to reclusión perpetua, her conviction in the 2016 sawmill case upheld on appeal
Designations: listed by the Philippines, Malaysia, and New Zealand in the cited record; designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States under E.O. 13224, notice published February 27, 2018; covered by the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Council’s December 31, 2020 designation of Islamic State–East Asia organizations
Afterlife: reorganization under Abu Dar (Owayda Benito Marohombsar), killed March 2019 with DNA confirmation in April; resurgence reported from 2023 under the Dawlah Islamiya name, including the December 3, 2023 bombing of the Mindanao State University gym in Marawi that killed four — blamed on the group’s remnants and claimed by the Islamic State (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Siege of Marawi, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute, Philstar, PNA, Wikipedia — 2016 Davao City bombing, Federal Register, Wikipedia — Isnilon Hapilon)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Islamic State’s Philippine Province

Researchers of the Islamic State’s external provinces use the group as the Philippine case: the April 2015 bay’ah, Hapilon’s 2016 appointments as emir for the Philippines and then Southeast Asia, the black flags over Marawi, and the post-2017 survival of the Dawlah Islamiya name — the sequence this wiki’s Siege of Marawi and Abu Sayyaf entries carry from the other directions. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Isnilon Hapilon)

2. Analyzing Clan Structure in Mindanao Militancy

The group is the standard case study of kinship-based militancy in the Lanao provinces — brothers as commanders, parents alleged as financier and recruiter, marriage and clan ties binding the fighting base — the structure that explains both its rapid mobilization in 2016-2017 and its vulnerability to the deaths of a single family. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute)

3. Following the Court Record

The legal aftermath is unusually complete: the 2020 Taguig convictions for the Davao bombing, Farhana Maute’s 2024 terrorism-financing conviction and the appellate affirmance of the sawmill-beheading convictions, and the designations that frame continuing prosecution — the adjudicated spine any account of the group should rest on. (Wikipedia — 2016 Davao City bombing, PNA)

4. Tracking Designations and Current Status

Analysts read the group’s present through dated instruments — the February 2018 United States designation, the Anti-Terrorism Council’s December 31, 2020 listing of Islamic State–East Asia organizations, the post-2023 reports of Dawlah Islamiya activity — treating “dismantled” or “resurgent” as claims with dates rather than settled status. (Federal Register, Wikipedia — Maute group)

Strategies

Carry every number with its claimant: militant strength, death tolls, and “all brothers dead” declarations all come from parties to the conflict; this entry attributes each figure to the record that states it, the discipline this wiki’s Siege of Marawi entry applies to the battle’s own counts. (Wikipedia — Siege of Marawi)
Date the names: “Maute Group” is the name of the 2012-2017 organization; “Islamic State of Lanao” and “Dawlah Islamiya” are the post-2019 designations, and the United States designation ties them together as one listed entity — writers should date whichever name they use. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Federal Register)
Read the designations in full: the American listing of February 27, 2018 names the aliases “IS-Ranao” and “Islamic State of Lanao” — the legal instrument that fuses the group’s several names into one sanctioned identity. (Federal Register)
Keep the family tree straight: Omar and Abdullah founded and led; Cayamora (father) and Farhana (mother) were arrested in June 2017 — the father dead in custody that August, the mother convicted in 2024 — and Abu Dar led the remnants from 2017 to his death in 2019. (Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute, Philstar, PNA)

Security and Safety Measures

The designation regime: listing as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under E.O. 13224 exposes the group’s members and financiers to blocking of assets and criminal exposure in the designating jurisdictions, alongside the listings carried by the Philippines, Malaysia, and New Zealand and the Anti-Terrorism Council’s December 31, 2020 designation of the Islamic State–East Asia organizations — the legal perimeter maintained around the group and its successors. (Federal Register, Wikipedia — Maute group)
The adjudicated record on civilian harm: the Davao City bombing’s fifteen dead and about seventy wounded were the subject of the September 29, 2020 Taguig convictions of eleven men on reclusión perpetua, and the Butig sawmill beheadings of the 2024 and appellate convictions of the matriarch — court-fixed findings that anchor the group’s record of attacks on civilians. (Wikipedia — 2016 Davao City bombing, PNA)
Custody and detention practice: Cayamora Maute’s death in Bureau of Jail Management and Penology custody on August 27, 2017, of natural causes while being rushed to hospital, is part of the documented record of how the state handled the group’s captured elders. (Philstar)
For researchers and journalists: the group’s story is told by combatants, prosecutors, and survivors whose accounts diverge — premature death claims (June 10, 2017), delayed confirmations (September 4 and October 21, 2017), and recurring status declarations all require dates and attribution; the safest spine is the designations file and the court record. (Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute, Federal Register)

Historical Context

The group rose from the intersection of a clan and a collapsing ceasefire. The Maute brothers — sons of Cayamora Maute, described in the record as a senior figure of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and Farhana Maute — broke with the MILF’s peace-process path after 2012, drew followers from its radicals and from foreign fighters, and in April 2015 swore allegiance to the Islamic State alongside Ansar Khalifa Philippines, in the network of Islamic State-aligned groups that included the Khalifa Islamiyah Mindanao. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute)

The group announced itself in 2016. In February the Army overran its Butig headquarters in the first clash; in April six sawmill workers were abducted and two beheaded; on September 2 the Davao City night market bombing killed fifteen; in October three men linked to the group were arrested for it; in November a bomb was found near the United States embassy in Manila and the group briefly seized Butig town itself. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — 2016 Davao City bombing) Then came Marawi: on May 23, 2017, operating with Hapilon’s Abu Sayyaf faction — Hapilon having been named emir of Islamic State forces in the Philippines in April 2016 and for Southeast Asia that June — the group seized the city core, and President Duterte proclaimed martial law over Mindanao the same day. The five months of siege that followed are this wiki’s separate entry: the brothers dead by October, the last buildings cleared October 23, and the accounting — 978 militants dead by the official count — closed at year’s end with Galvez’s report that all seven Maute brothers were dead. (Wikipedia — Siege of Marawi, Wikipedia — Isnilon Hapilon, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute)

The aftermath ran through law and through remnants. The parents had been taken in June 2017 — Cayamora to die in custody in August, Farhana to conviction in 2024; the United States designated the group in February 2018; Abu Dar rebuilt the remnants as Dawlah Islamiya until his death in March 2019; and the record of the 2020s — the Anti-Terrorism Council’s designation of December 31, 2020, the reported resurgence from 2023, the December 3, 2023 bombing of the Mindanao State University gym — keeps the group’s survival a matter of dated claims rather than settled status. (Philstar, Federal Register, PNA, Wikipedia — Maute group)

Challenges and Controversies

The Founding Date and the Founder

The standard account founds the group in 2012 under the two brothers; the same article’s dates of operation begin 2013, Abdullah Maute’s article has him co-founding it “around 2013,” and early reporting credited Omar alone as founder. The variance is small but real, and any precise founding claim should name its source. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute)

Conflicting Death Reports

The leadership’s deaths were misreported before they were confirmed: the Army prematurely claimed the brothers dead on June 10, 2017; Abdullah’s August 7 death was known first through Islamic State sympathizers’ martyrdom postings before the military’s September 4 announcement; and Omar’s October 16 death beside Hapilon awaited FBI DNA confirmation announced October 21. The December 2017 “seven brothers dead” report rests on the military’s own account. (Wikipedia — Abdullah Maute, Wikipedia — Isnilon Hapilon)

Family Enterprise or Ideological Movement

Interpretations divide between reading the group as a genuine Islamic State province and as a clan venture wearing transnational colors — a family that converted MILF networks, ransom and financing allegations, and Marawi’s ruins into a brand. The designations treat it as the former; the prosecutions traced its money through the latter’s household; most scholarly accounts carry both readings at once. (Wikipedia — Maute group, PNA)

The Group’s Afterlife

Whether the group “ended” at Marawi is the standing dispute of its current status: the government’s position is attrition — Abu Dar dead in 2019, leaders killed or convicted — while reported Dawlah Islamiya operations into the 2020s, including the December 3, 2023 Mindanao State University bombing claimed by the Islamic State, keep the question open. This entry records the afterlife as dated claims only. (Wikipedia — Maute group, Federal Register)