Philippines troops fight to retake city
TAIWAN • The Philippine military was battling to regain control of the southern city of Marawi Wednesday, hours after Islamist militants beheaded a local police chief and took a Catholic priest and his congregation hostage.
Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-inspired Maute group stormed the city on Tuesday, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to cut short an official visit to Russia and declare martial law for 60 days across the island region of Mindanao.
He added that he would consider expanding his martial law order throughout the country if attacks continued.
Duterte used the beheading of a police chief in the municipality of Malabang as further justification. “He was stopped by a checkpoint manned by terrorists and I think they decapitated him right there and then,” he said.
The president is known for his iron-fisted tactics, having waged a brutal crackdown on drugs that has killed thousands since last year.
His hardline approach has won the admiration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who congratulated him on doing in an “unbelievable job” in a phone call last month, according to a transcript leaked to the U.S. press this week.
The crisis erupted on Tuesday after the army raided the hideout of Hapilon, who has a U.S. government bounty of US$5 million on his head.
Abu Sayyaf fighters called for reinforcements from Maute, a group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas, and up to 200 gunmen have since been on the rampage in the city of over 200,000.