ISIS propaganda website reporting May 26 capture of an Army armored vehicle by “ISIS” – i.e., the Maute group.
Omarkhayam Romato Maute went to study at al-Azhar in Egypt around 2000 and there met an Indonesian student, Minhati Madrais, whom he later married. None of his fellow students saw him as having any radical tendencies at all, and photographs show a young man enchanted by his baby daughters and playing with the growing family by the Red Sea. After graduation in 2009, Maute went back with his wife to her father’s pesantren [Islamic boarding school] Darul Amal in Bekasi, outside Jakarta, where he taught for a while before returning to Lanao. He is fluent in Indonesian and Arabic. His brother Abdullah studied in Jordan and also is reported to have extensive ties in the Middle East.