News that the Trump administration is gearing up to expand the global war on terror into its eighth country, the Philippines, arrived on Monday shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was pictured smiling and glad-handing with President Rodrigo Duterte, the nation’s controversial leader who has been condemned as a serial human rights abuser.

“President Rodrigo Duterte has unleashed a human rights calamity on the Philippines in his first year in office.”
—Human Rights Watch”The authority to strike ISIS targets [in the Philippines] as part of collective self-defense could be granted as part of an official military operation that may be named as early as Tuesday,” NBC‘s Courtney Kube noted. “The strikes would likely be conducted by armed drones.”

The drone strikes, Kube noted, would come in addition to the intelligence the U.S. has been sharing with the Philippines “for years.”

Responding to NBC‘s report, Win Without War concluded that the continued escalation and expansion of the war against ISIS “is why Congress needs to debate a new AUMF.”

The report came as Tillerson was in Manila meeting with Duterte, who bragged to a state news agency that the U.S. and Australia have “considerably toned down” their criticism of his human rights record. Rights groups have accused Duterte of responsibility for the thousands of extrajudicial killings that have occurred amid his administration’s “war on drugs.”

“President Rodrigo Duterte has unleashed a human rights calamity on the Philippines in his first year in office,” Human Rights Watch said recently.