Philippines troops fight to retake city from militants

THE Philippine military was battling to regain control of the southern city of Marawi yesterday, hours after Islamist militants beheaded a local police chief and took a Catholic priest and his congregation hostage.

Militants from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-inspired Maute group stormed the city on Tuesday, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to cut short an official visit to Russia and declare martial law for 60 days across the island region of Mindanao.

He added that he would consider expanding his martial law order throughout the country if attacks continued.

Mr Duterte used the beheading of a police chief in the municipality of Malabang as further justification. “He was stopped by a checkpoint manned by terrorists and I think they decapitated him right there and then,” he said.

The president is well known for his iron-fisted tactics, having waged a brutal crackdown on drugs that has killed thousands since last year.

His hardline approach has won the admiration of President Donald Trump, who congratulated him on doing an “unbelievable job” in a phone call last month, according to a transcript leaked to the US press this week.

More recently the Philippine leader has turned his focus on the raging Islamist insurgency in the south, which has now emerged as an epicentre of regional jihad after Isil appointed Isnilon Hapilon, an Arabic-speaking preacher from its Abu Sayyaf affiliate, as its south-east Asian emir.

The crisis erupted on Tuesday after the army raided the hideout of Hapilon, who has a US government bounty of $5million (£3.9million) on his head.

Abu Sayyaf fighters called for reinforcements from Maute, a group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas, and up to 200 gunmen have since been on the rampage in the city of over 200,000.

Archbishop Socrates Villegas said fighters had forced their way into Marawi Cathedral and seized a priest, 10 worshippers and three church workers. They have threatened to kill the hostages if government forces are not recalled.

Three government troops have so far died in the fighting and 12 have been injured.