Bittersweet triumph

ITHOUT fanfare, an important victory has come the leaders of the Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants who attempted to set up an IS caliphate in the city.

The liberation of Marawi is a bittersweet triumph of freedom to be had, and our government troops deserve the

But how can we, as a nation, celebrate the deaths of 1,057 fellow Filipinos, consisting of 847 Islamist terror - dreds of thousands of residents of Marawi, including the the nearly 80,000 displaced families, the widowed and the orphaned among them, when their city lies in ruin?

Marawi may now begin the process of healing and recovery the only way it can: years of hard toiling to rebuild their lives, without the guarantee of a future free of terror.

The heads of the Maute extremists and the Abu Sayyaf Group who led the siege of Marawi in May, Omarkhayam Maute and Isnilon Hapilon, have been killed by government snipers, but the threat of a new leader emerging for the IS-linked group remains.

Dr. Mahmud Ahmad, was among six to eight foreign terrorists who had escaped, along with 20 to 30 armed elements, as the Philippine security troops cleared the last holdout area in Marawi. The military command has not discounted the possibility that Mahmud could be anointed as the next extremist leader in Marawi.

Apart from the billions of pesos required, President Rodrigo Duterte’s urgent concern is the number of injured or heavily wounded soldiers in the war. There is no respite for government forces as continuing operations have a goal of hunting down Mahmud and those who had escaped with him.

For now we can join the voices of the rest of a grateful nation and echo the Palace’s commendation of our troops

Perhaps beyond our immediate horizon, the Philippines may take comfort and inspiration in knowing that there’s in another part of the world around the same time Marawi was liberated from the Maute terror group.

The tide has also turned in favor of freedom for what was considered the global capital of the Islamic State in Syria itself:

On Tuesday, US- backed forces declared victory as they took full control of Raqqa from the Islamic State group, defeating the last jihadist holdouts in the de facto Syrian capital of their now- shattered “caliphate.” They raised their flags over the last jihadist footholds after a four- month battle.

In a report by Agence France-Presse, the commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the city’s stadium of mines and any remaining militants.

With the fall of Raqqa, which will now stand as a symbol of the jihadist movement’s collapsing fortunes, the terrorists’ fight for their cause will be a much more uphill battle as they start again from square one. They will have to reestablish new base camps or strongholds. Otherwise, the IS fighters would find it nearly impossible to operate, much less draw young recruits to its training camps.

We call on Dr. Mahmud and his fellow militants to take the side of freedom, for Filipinos and other peace-loving citizens of the world.