The 2011 US National Strategy for Counterterrorism maintains the focus of the United States on pressuring al-Qaida’s core, while emphasizing the need to build foreign partnerships and capacity. The strategy states that the US is engaged in a broad, sustained, and integrated campaign together with the concerted efforts of allies, partners, and multilateral institutions. Beyond al-Qaida, other foreign terrorist organizations threaten US national security interests. These groups seek to undermine the security and stability of allied and partner governments. Building strong enduring partnerships based
on common understandings of the threat, the local culture, and common objectives is essential to every one of the strategy’s overarching counterterrorism objectives, and the US endeavors to do so in the southern Philippines.