Bloody end to city siege
Residents return after IS group defeated to find homes ransacked
SMOKE wafted from the smouldering carcasses of buildings and houses, with the dome of a mosque blasted out with holes, as Philippine troops yesterday battled to defeat a final stand by the last dozens of pro-Islamic State group militants in a southern city.
The desolate war scene could herald what the government hopes will be the end of a nearly five-month siege in Marawi city.
Filipino troops killed 13 more suspected militants on Wednesday night, including one believed to be a top Malaysian terror suspect although his body hasn’t been recovered yet, military officials said.
“Our troops are continuing their assault,” army Colonel Romeo Brawner said after his news conference in Marawi was disrupted by explosions reverberating from the final area of battle, about 2km away. About 20 to 30 militants continue to fight back, he said.
While troops pressed their assault with artillery and gunfire, officers used loudspeakers to ask the militants, many of them positioned in a bullet-pocked two-story building, to surrender. The building stands on a pier by the lake near a huge gunfire-scarred welcome sign that says “I (love) Marawi”.
Sporadic fighting continued even after President Rodrigo Duterte visited the Islamic city on Tuesday and announced its liberation, sparking hopes that hundreds of thousands of residents could begin returning home. This will depend on how quickly the city is declared safe of militants and rebuilt.
Volunteers and displaced residents have begun a government-led clean-up in neighbourhoods that were declared safe. Power has been restored in more than half of the lakeside city, along with water supply, officials said.
On Monday, the defence secretary and military chief of staff announced that two of the last leaders of the siege – Isnilon Hapilon, one of the FBI’s most-wanted terror suspects, and Omarkhayam Maute – were killed in a gunbattle.
Their deaths partly convinced the president he could declare Marawi liberated from the gunmen, said Brawner.
Military spokesperson Major General Restituto Padilla said Malaysian Mahmud bin Ahmad was believed among 13 militants killed. Six soldiers were slightly wounded. Civilian hostages – a mother and her teenage daughter – were also rescued, Padilla said.
The information about Mahmud was based on what the rescued mother and daughter told the military, Padilla said.
Mahmud, who uses nom de guerre Abu Handzalah, is a close associate of Hapilon. Military officials said he had linked up Hapilon with IS and bankrolled the siege.
Padilla said troops discovered that there may be more militant fighters remaining in a small battle area than earlier estimated.
Marawi, a mosque-studded centre of Islam in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, has been devastated by the siege by the militants who waved IS-style black flags and hung them on buildings they had occupied in Marawi’s business district and outlying areas, according to the military.
The insurrection prompted the military to launch a ground offensive and airstrikes, with the US and Australia later backing the troops by deploying surveillance aircraft.
Duterte declared martial law across the south, the homeland of minority Muslims and the scene of a decades-old separatist rebellion, to deal with the uprising and prevent other insurgents from waging attacks elsewhere and reinforcing the fighters in Marawi.
The surprise occupation of the city and the involvement of foreign fighters set off alarms in Southeast Asia. Analysts said parts of the southern Philippines were at risk of becoming a new base for IS as it lost territory to international forces in Iraq and Syria.
Some residents who returned for the clean-up became emotional after seeing their devastated city and homes.
Esnairah Macabunar saw weeds growing around her two-storey house but became more stunned when she went inside and realised her home had been ransacked. “Everything was stolen in my house. I am still shaken because I cannot accept what happened, my whole life savings are gone.”