Philippines claims battle with rebels over in Marawi

The Philippines on Monday announced the end of five months of military operations in a southern city held by proIslamic State rebels, after a fierce and unfamiliar urban war that has marked the country’s biggest security crisis in years.

Offensive combat operations were terminated after troops put a stop to the last stand of rebel gunmen who clung on inside several buildings in the heart of Marawi, and refused to surrender.

Ernesto Abella, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, said the Philippines had prevailed against “the most serious threat of violent extremism and radicalism in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.”

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the security forces had “nipped the budding infrastructure” of extremist groups.

“In crushing thus far the most serious attempt to export violent extremism and radicalism in the Philippines and in the region, we have contributed to preventing its spread in Asia,” Lorenzana said in Clark at a meeting of regional defense ministers.

The rebel occupation stunned a military inexperienced in urban combat and stoked wider concerns that Islamic State loyalists have gained influence among local Muslims and have ambitions to use the island of Mindanao as a base for operations in Southeast Asia.

Those fears are compounded by the organization of the militant alliance and its ability to recruit young fighters, lure foreign radicals, stockpile huge amounts of arms and endure 154 days of ground offensive and air strikes.