A strong message to the Marawi rebels

THE fighting is over in Marawi City. As early as Tuesday last week, President Duterte declared the city liberated after the Maute-Islamic State (IS) rebels’ two top leaders – Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute -- were killed in one of the remaining buildings held by the rebels.

By Sunday, it was down to one final building where 30 rebels were holding out. On Monday, Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana announced the end of all combat operations with the fall of that one final stand. Troops found 42 bodies inside, some of them possibly suicides.

United States Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is now in the Philippines to attend a meeting with ASEAN foreign ministers, became the first foreign official to commend the Philippine military for the liberation of Marawi. It has sent a strong message to the terrorists, he said.

The Maute rebels, supported by Islamic State (IS) fighters from various countries, had sought to establish a Southeast Asian center of the international Islamic State caliphate and had even named Hapilon as the “emir” for region. They may explain why the fighting took as long as it did – five months. The Islamic State had been able to occupy large areas in Syria and Iraq for years, and they must have thought they could do the same in the Philippines.

The Maute-IS rebels may have overestimated their hold on the Muslim population of Marawi City. They may have counted on the support of the local population, which is 99.6 percent Muslim. But, according to eyewitnesses, when the exhausted soldiers began returning to Cagayan de Oro in their trucks after the fighting, the people came out into the streets to cheer and thank them.

Part of the reason must be the behavior of the troops themselves and the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. They fought the rebels but always with due consideration for the safety of hostages whose lives were in danger. They took all possible steps to avoid extensive damage to the mosques. They were not a conquering army; they were a rescue force come to fight armed men many of whom were foreigners from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Middle East.

The crushing of the Marawi rebellion has indeed sent a strong message to the Maute and their IS cohorts, and it is not just a military one. The Filipino people are not ready to accept an Islamic State caliphate led by some Middle East strongman. We may have many imperfections in our own government and our national life, but they are our very own and we have all the opportunity to shape them and achieve, all by ourselves, our hopes and aspirations as a people.