Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II (right seated), presents Karen Aizha Hamidon (center), the widow of the leader of a militant band allegedly sympathetic to the Islamic State group, during a news conference at the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila, Philippines on Oct 18. (AP)

Philippine law enforcement agents have arrested a woman who tried to spread radical ideas and recruit hundreds of foreigners to reinforce pro- Islamic State rebels occupying a southern city, the justice minister said on Wednesday.Karen Aizha Hamidon, the widow of a former leader of a small extremist group in Mindanao, was arrested by special agents at her home in a Manila suburb a week ago and has been charged with inciting to rebellion, Vitaliano Aguirre told a news conference.Hamidon is accused of using social media and messaging apps to call on foreigners to join the siege by an alliance of Islamic State loyalists in Marawi City, a battle that has lasted nearly five months. Agents found she had made 296 posts in chatrooms on Telegram and WhatsApp “calling on Muslims in the Philippines, India and Singapore to come to Marawi to establish a province of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”, he said. (RTRS)