Rebels ditch 31 hostages and escape
ISIL-linked Philippine militants driven from rural village where they took over school and used civilians as human shields
MARAWI // The Philippine military said Islamist militants fled from a primary school in the south of the country yesterday, leaving 31 hostages unharmed after a day-long gunbattle with troops.
There was no word of casualties at Pigkawayan town, which is about 190 kilometres south of Marawi City, where ISIL-linked fighters have been battling troops for more than a month in a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives.
“The enemy made a hasty withdrawal, leaving behind 31 hostages, among them 12 youngsters,” said armed forces spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla.
Another 20 civilians trapped in the area because of the crossfire were also rescued. Community leaders in the area were called in to help with negotiating the rescue of hostages.
“It’s over but we’re also on guard because they might carry out other attacks,” Brig Padilla said.
He identified the attackers at Pigkawayan as members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, one of four groups in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao that have pledged allegiance to ISIL.
Police originally said about 300 armed Bangsamoro men stormed the school early yesterday. Later, however, Brig Padilla revised that number to about 50 militants.
Pigkawayan and Marawi are on the large southern island of Mindanao. Some Bangsamoro members have joined fighters from two more powerful Islamist factions, the Maute group and Abu Sayyaf, who occupied the town of Marawi a month ago and have been fighting government forces ever since.
But Brig Padilla said the incident at Pigkawayan was not related to the fighting in Marawi.
Muslim rebels have been fighting for more than four decades for an independent or autonomous region in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic nation, with the conflict claiming more than 120,000 lives.
The major rebel organisations have signed, or are pursuing, peace deals with the government, but small hardline groups such as the Bangsamoro have
There was no word of casualties at Pigkawayan town, which is about 190 kilometres south of Marawi City
vowed to continue fighting.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the southern region of Mindanao on May 23, immediately after fighters flying the ISIL flag rampaged through Marawi.
Their assault on Marawi ignited an urban war that has claimed hundreds of lives and which Mr Duterte has said is part of an ISIL campaign to establish a base in Mindanao. The fighting has left Marawi, the most important Muslim city in the Philippines, largely in ruins. The militants involved in the Marawi conflict are mostly from the Maute and Abu Sayyaf organisations, which have united with the Bangsamoro under the ISIL umbrella, according to the government.
The military has said foreign fighters, including some from Chechnya, Indonesia and Malaysia, have joined the Marawi conflict. ISIL has ambitions of setting up a caliphate in SouthEast Asia as the group loses territory in Iraq and Syria.
Eliseo Garsesa, the town mayor, said local authorities had received text messages in the recent past about an imminent attack somewhere in the area. The Bangsamoro were blamed for attacking at least nine Mindanao towns in 2008, with the assaults claiming about 400 lives and forcing 600,000 people to flee their homes.