In 2017, Dili joined the Maute group, a radical Islamist group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas and foreign fighters led by Omar Maute, the alleged founder of a Dawlah Islamiya, or Islamic state, based in Lanao del Sur. The Maute group had clashed on several occasions with Armed Forces of the Philippines troops. A resident of Piagapo, Lanao del Sur, Dili’s interest was piqued when he heard that there were ISIS recruiters in his community. He felt restless.

"I had been studying Arabic before, but I stopped. I wasn't really doing much at that time. I heard that there were ISIS recruiters in Barangay Gacap, so I went there to find out what they were doing. There were foreigners there from Malaysia and Indonesia. They told us good things about Islam and so we were encouraged to join them," he said.

Dili and his brothers ended up as fighters for the Dawlah Islamiya in the Battle of Marawi, a battle that devastated both the city and its community. After less than a month of fighting in the siege, Dili says he knew that he had made a mistake. He originally thought the group's mission was to spread the teachings of Islam, but this became increasingly at odds with the actions of the group he had joined.

"I saw that the people who had joined Dawlah Islamiya had different interpretations of what we were supposed to do. There were those of us who only fired at combatants. However, I saw others gun down civilians, too. That's when I knew that the group had been corrupted."

Violent extremism occurs in all societies and in the name of many faiths, ideologies and beliefs based around religion, ethnicity, class or race. It is also a complex phenomenon that has numerous structural and psychological drivers. There is a growing need for programmes and policies that understand the impact of new challenges posed by migration, online hate speech, fake news, growing polarization and intolerance.