After 100 days, Philippines says Marawi siege to end soon

MANILA: One hundred days after militants loyal to IS took over parts of a southern Philippine city, the military is confident the end is in sight for what has been its biggest security crisis in years.

After a lightning strike on May 23 on Marawi City, the Dawla Islamiya rebel alliance has held out against daily artillery bombardment and air strikes by jets and bombers, and its snipers remain placed in the rubble of the city’s business district.

But now, says Romeo Brawner, deputy commander of the military’s Marawi task force, rebel-held areas are shrinking, and there are signs the fighters are low on food and ammunition, and starting to flag.

“Hopefully, the Marawi siege is going to be over within the next few weeks,” he told reporters.

The military has, however, missed repeated targets and deadlines to crush the rebels, whose strength and resolve it accepts it has under-estimated.

The conflict in the southern region of Mindano has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and killed nearly 800 by government count — 133 soldiers and police, 45 civilians and an estimated 617 militants.

Residents say they fear the bodies of many more civilians could be in the rubble of the lakeside city.

Estimates of civilians trapped in the fighting at one point were over 2,000, although authorities say 1,728 have been rescued.

The Red Cross says it is investigating the whereabouts of 179 missing people.

The protracted occupation has heightened concerns that IS’s radical ideology may have gained a deeper foothold in the southern Philippines than was previously imagined, and raised questions about whether the military can contain a wider rebellion.

The presence of foreigners among the fighters is fanning fears that Mindanao could become a draw for extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and those being pushed out of Syria and Iraq.

Armed forces chief Eduardo Ano said strategic gains had been made against the militants in the past week, including retaking the police headquarters and the city’s central mosque.