Friendly fire kills 11 Filipino troops
MARAWI/MANILA : An air strike on Islamist rebels holed up in a southern Philippine city has killed 11 government troops, the armed forces said on Thursday, in a major blow for a military struggling to end its biggest internal security crisis in years.
The accident happened on Wednesday when one of two planes bombing rebel positions missed its target in the heart of Marawi City, where ground troops took on pro-Islamic State militants in a tenth day of fierce street battles.
The bombing error came during the first offensive deployment of fixed-wing aircraft in the operation, which was aimed at flushing out the Islamist gunmen who have defied expectations by clinging on through days of ground assaults and helicopter rocket attacks.
“Sometimes in the fog of war a lot of things could happen. Accidents happen, like this,” Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news conference.
“It’s very sad to be hitting our own troops,” he added. “There must be a mistake somewhere, either someone directing from the ground, or the pilot.”
The little-known Maute group has been a fierce enemy of a military with superior firepower and greater troop strength.
The government fears the brazen attack and its resilience could strike a chord with the Islamic State leadership in the Middle East and win its endorsement as its Southeast Asian affiliate.
The deaths of the soldiers takes the number of security force members killed to 39, with 19 civilians and 120 rebel fighters killed in the Marawi battles.
Lorenzana said Saudi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Yemeni and Chechen militants were among eight foreigners killed, in what experts say is a sign that the Philippines could become a regional hub for extremism that Manila may not have the capability to contain.
An exodus of residents from the mainly Muslim Marawi started on May 23, when the Maute rebels ran amok, torching and seizing buildings, capturing police weapons and vehicles, taking hostages, and freeing jailed rebels.