100 DAYS ON, NO END TO MARAWI SIEGE
The fact that the fighters have held on for so long is troubling to many
MARAWI
Marawi and the surrounding area, on the southern island of Mindanao, was once home to 200,000 people, the biggest Muslim-majority city in the Philippines. It is now a mostly emptiedout field of wreckage, contested by a dwindling group of Islamist militants who claim loyalty to the Islamic State group, and by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to root them out no matter the cost.
That cost has been grim, particularly for civilians who had already felt like a mistreated minority and have now been displaced by the battle. Their frustration is rising.
According to the Red Cross, 300,000 people from the city and surrounding area have fled the fight, many taking up residence in camps just 9.5km away.
Cramped inside hot tents with donated bedsheets to separate their rooms, most people here desperately want to return home, but are coming to grips with the fact that they are stuck.
“They told us to pack for only three days,” said Esnimeh Dago, 22. She was a make-up artist here and fled with her mother, grandmother and 1-year-old son on the first day of the militants’ assault.
“The government is giving us food and some support, but we want to go back to our jobs,” she said. “Now, it looks like there is nothing to go back to.”
This area has been a wellspring for resistance to the Philippine government for a long time — by insurgent movements, Islamist groups, criminal gangs, sometimes all three together.
The militants who seized Marawi in May have pledged loyalty to IS. At the battle’s start, there were thought to be about 600 fighters, led by the Maute brothers and their gang, along with Isnilon Hapilon, the longtime leader of the militant Abu Sayyaf group, and now the head of the IS branch in the Philippines.
The attraction of the IS brand is obvious: a boost to recruiting and a fearsome reputation to graft onto their own. But in recent months, counterterrorism experts have acknowledged that real aid from IS’ central command — mostly financial, though including a few dozen foreign fighters — has strengthened the local group.
Now, the government contends that only a few dozen militants are alive in the city. But the battle’s end does not seem near, and the fact that the fighters have held on so long is troubling to many.
“I would guess that even the insurgents are surprised at how long this has gone on,” said Zachary M. Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who specialises in Southeast Asian security issues.
The army said at least 133 troops, 617 militants and 45 civilians have been killed. At least 1,728 people have been rescued after either being taken hostage or being trapped in the firefight.
The military last week said it had cleared Marawi’s grand mosque, which militants had used as a headquarters and where they were initially believed to have taken dozens of hostages.
Afterward, Duterte visited to try to give a boost to his troops here. He put on a flak jacket and fired a sniper rifle in the militants’ direction, again emphasising his tough-guy image.
In the city, the army maintains that militants have been pinned down to a few square blocks. But commanders acknowledge that the fighters are well supplied with weapons and food. And the regional branch of IS here will certainly see their holdout as a propaganda coup.
Abuza called the siege a “strategic victory” for the militants.
“After all of this, Southeast Asia is all of a sudden an important player in the IS world.” NYT