Ridding Marawi of black flags S
IX days before Marawi will mark its fifth month in the midst of a battle, President Rodrigo Duterte visited the city and declared it “liberated from terrorists’ influence.”
It was a necessary declaration, a signal that work on rehabilitating the city can soon begin. It also honored the sacrifices that government troops made to corner Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute. Hapilon’s death is a serious blow to Islamic State sympathizers in Southeast Asia; the terrorist was such a serious threat that the US justice department had placed a $5-million bounty on him.
But the declaration remains partly symbolic, for now.
Military operations will continue, with officials saying there remain 20 to 30 fighters and 20 hostages spread across at least 60 buildings in the city’s devastated core. Continuing, too, is the search for Mahmud Ahmad, the Malaysian national who is believed to be in Marawi and who was said to have played key roles as a recruiter and fundraiser for the siege that began last May 23. It’s a siege that can’t end soon enough, especially for the families of 163 soldiers and police and the 47 civilians who’ve died in the conflict. Even with 847 Islamist fighters already killed, those who remain must be considered a serious threat. This is not the time for celebration yet. Thirteen years after ISIS began operating in Iraq, at first to fight an American-led invasion there, the organization remains an international menace. In recent years, Southeast Asia has had to deal with the threat of Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah militants. ISIS seems worse. Hapilon, for one, led an Abu Sayyaf faction before he cast his lot with the Maute group, in a bid to demonstrate his credentials to ISIS.
American officials who dismissed the threat of ISIS more than a decade ago have learned a costly lesson, for which many other countries are paying the price in anxiety and human lives. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to the Associated Press in June 2017, told the US Congress that the cancellation three years ago of a US military operation “to help Philippine forces contain extremist fighters” was premature.
Our political and military leadership need all the support they can muster to contain IS, to ferret out all of its concealed black flags in Marawi and its surrounding provinces. So, by all means, commend the troops for Monday’s victory over Omar Maute and Isnilon Hapilon. But let it be the first of many necessary victories to come.