Reinforcements caught sneaking into warzone

Pacquiao visits troops

MANILA, July 29, (Agencies): Philippine troops have seized 59 suspected militants trying to reinforce Islamist gunmen holed up in the southern city of Marawai who have been battling government forces for more than two months, military officials said Friday.

The capture of the “suspicious persons” in the troubled Mindanao region has raised questions about how the Islamic State-inspired fighters have been able to hold out in Marawi for almost 70 days. Thirty-two suspected militants were arrested at a military checkpoint in Ipil town while 27 others were taken at a house in Zamboanga City on Tuesday, regional military spokeswoman Captain Jo-Ann Petinglay said.

A total 59 police and military uniforms were also seized from the suspects, a military statement added.

The group is suspected of planning to sneak into Marawi to help militants who have been on a rampage since May 23, battling government troops, holding numerous hostages and burning buildings while flying the black IS flag.

“They (the troops) have just prevented these individuals from potentially compounding the operational challenges in Marawi should they (have) succeeded in sneaking into the city,” a military statement quoted Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez, commander of the troops in Marawi, as saying.

He credited local governments and residents for reporting the suspects.

Although the government initially said there were only a few hundred militants in Marawi, the gunmen have held off the armed forces for weeks, resisting air strikes and artillery barrages.

The militants have surprised the military with their resilience and their continued supply of manpower, weapons and ammunition despite supposedly being surrounded.

Duterte

Backgrounds

Petinglay said those arrested were all Filipinos but their backgrounds were still being checked.

The fighting has so far claimed 630 lives, including 471 militants, 45 civilians and 114 government troops, military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said in Manila on Friday.

Galvez said efforts to secure the warzone were boosted by President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial declaration of martial law over the entire southern third of the country when the fighting broke out.

By law, martial law should have lasted only 60 days but last week Congress extended it till the end of the year.

“With martial law in force in entire Mindanao, we can validly restrict and effect arrests of suspicious persons and unscrupulous groups whose actions bear with the rebellion,” Galvez was quoted as saying.

The Philippine military says only about 60 pro-Islamic State group militants are still fighting in a bloody siege of southern Marawi city that has left 630 people dead, including more than 470 gunmen, and dragged on for more than two months. Military spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla said Friday that most of the militants’ leaders are believed to still be with the main group of gunmen fighting in an area less than one square kilometer (0.4 square mile).

Troops and police have arrested 59 men suspected of being on their way to reinforce the Marawi militants. The suspects were flown under heavy guard Friday to the Department of Justice in Manila, where they denied before prosecutors that they were aiming to back up the extremists.

Boxing hero Manny Pacquiao lifted the spirits of Philippine troops in a visit on Saturday to a southern city where soldiers have been battling pro-Islamic State militants for over two months.

The boxer-turned-senator, dressed in a military camouflage uniform, joked that he would join the fight in the city of Marawi where militants have been on a rampage, holding hostages and burning buildings while flying the black IS flag. “You are the real heroes, not Manny Pacquiao. I am just a boxer but you give your lives for our country,” he told soldiers in a camp in Marawi City.

Greet

“Hopefully, I can come back here and greet you again when the fighting is done and if it isn’t finished when I come back, then I will be the one who will go over there,” said Pacquiao, referring to a battleground outside the camp where gunshots and explosions could be heard.

The fighting in the Mindanao region has claimed 630 lives, including 471 militants, 45 civilians and 114 government troops, the military has said.

Pacquiao, who was made a lieutenant colonel in the military reserves in recognition of his boxing achievements, remains a hugely popular figure in the Philippines.

The Philippine president said his threat to launch airstrikes against tribal schools because they allegedly teach subversion would apply only when the buildings are empty, a clarification that still raised concern he was advocating a war crime.

President Rodrigo Duterte responded to a question in a news conference late Thursday that the bombings will be done at night and maintained that the schools were teaching students to become subversives and were operating without government permits.

Still, Carlos Conde of the US-based Human Rights Watch said Friday that bombing even unoccupied school buildings is still a violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime.

“I didn’t say that I’ll bomb those if there are people, so I asked them to go away from there, meaning I’ll destroy those because you are using a school without a license,” Duterte said. “I didn’t say I’ll kill the children. Far from it actually. I’ll free the children from perdition because they’ll learn to be like you.” “I have every reason to stop it because you are producing another generation of haters,” he said. “Don’t fool me. You teach nothing there but socialism and killings.”

In a news conference late Monday after delivering his annual state of the nation address, Duterte condemned the insurgents for destroying bridges and torching schools in the countryside.

But he said the rebels were sparing Lumad or indigenous schools, which he alleged were operating under guerrilla control without permits from the government’s education department. “Get out of there, I’m telling the Lumads now. I’ll have those bombed, including your structures,” Duterte said then.