Moro conflict: what Wikipedia removed

The Moro conflict is the decades-long insurgency in the Philippines fought in part by Islamist and jihadist groups against the government. In 2015 the opening called it “a series of insurgencies launched by Maoist rebels, Moro rebels, and Islamists against Government forces that began in 1969.” Today that definitional sentence has been replaced with “political tensions and open hostilities developed between the Government of…”, and islamist appears zero times in the opening though it survives six times in the article. A reader today learns the conflict began with political tensions, and not that the opening once named Islamists as one of the insurgent parties from the start.

The word “siege” appeared 6 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 8. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

Where this comes from

We saved this article’s opening paragraph at 5 moments between 2010 and 2025. Everything below is Wikipedia’s own text, quoted from those saved copies. The interactive version, with every snapshot side by side and each removal marked in place, is at ilroot.com/case/moro-conflict.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

word	2010	2015	2020	6 October 2023	2025
siege	0	0	0	0	0
terror	0	10	7	7	7
militant	0	3	2	2	2
islamist	0	3	0	0	0
jihad	0	2	3	3	2
massacre	0	3	1	1	1

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

• The definitional sentence naming Maoist rebels, Moro rebels and Islamists as the insurgent parties, dropped from the opening.
• The sentence describing the 1969 origin of hostilities, reworded in the current opening.
• The detail that the insurgency was triggered by the Jabidah massacre, reworded in the current opening.
• A sentence on the insurgency’s roots in a longer history of Moro resistance, dropped from the opening.
• A sentence on Moro resistance persisting against the central government, dropped from the opening.

How it opened then, and now

2010 (revision 369567719):

Belligerents Philippines Christian Militia Civilian Volunteer Organization Supported by : United States File:NPA.png New People’s Army File:Pi milf.gif Moro Islamic Liberation Front Moro National Liberation Front Abu Sayyaf Rajah Sulaiman Movement Jemaah Islamiyah Ampatuan militiamen Casualties and losses Total casualties (civilian and combatant): est. 160,000 The insurgency in the Philippines refers to conflicts between rebel groups and the Philippine government and its supporters. Although the rebel organizations themselves existed prior to the 1960’s, the insurgency itself began on 1969. ^ http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/11/20081113132836574720.html ^ http://newsinfo.i…

2025 (revision 1296931172):

Separatist conflict in the Philippines This article is about the post-colonial era insurgency. For the conflict with the United States of 1899–1913, see Moro Rebellion . For the pre-1899 conflict, see Spanish–Moro conflict . For the series of attacks over Sabah, see Cross border attacks in Sabah . Not to be confused with Kidnapping of Aldo Moro . Belligerents Philippines Supported by: United States (advisors) Australia Indonesia Malaysia (since 2001) Russia China International Monitoring Team (IMT) Brunei Indonesia Japan Libya Malaysia Norway European Union Ilaga Bangsamoro MNLF (until 1996) MILF (until 2014) Former support: Libya (until 2011) Malaysia (until 2001) NDFP MRLO Jihadist groups …

Related

• The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
• The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
• Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
• The live article on Wikipedia

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