Air strikes target group with ties to Islamic State

MANILA — Philippine military air strikes and ground assaults targeted a group of Islamic State-linked militants in an offensive that reportedly killed five extremists and forced more than 5,000 villagers to flee to safety in the south, officials said Monday.

Army Col. Romeo Brawner said the offensive Sunday sparked gunbattles between troops and the extremists in Tubaran town in a mountainous region of Lanao del Sur province. The military was verifying reports that at least of five militants had been killed.

Troops captured a jungle camp where they found empty ammunition boxes, and were pursuing the militants, Brawner said.

The offensive targeted about 40 militants led by Owayda Benito Marohombsar, who uses the nom de guerre Abu Dar. He was among those who led a five-month siege of Marawi city, not far from Tubaran, but managed to escape before troops quelled the uprising last October.

More than 5,000 villagers from Tuburan and two other nearby towns fled when they heard the air strikes, regional assemblyman Zia Alonto Adiong said. He said more than 700 moved into evacuation centers while others stayed with relatives.

Abu Dar’s presence in the hinterlands of Tubaran, where he has relatives, was confirmed last month when his men killed a village leader who resisted their plan to venture into town. The leader’s relatives notified the military about Abu Dar’s presence and helped troops hunt down the militants, Adiong said.

Abu Dar is the only locally prominent leader of the bloody Marawi siege who is confirmed to have escaped from the Islamic city after being wounded in the massive military offensive.

He reportedly brought more than 30 million pesos ($577,000) in looted cash out of Marawi, which he could use for militant recruitment and to rebuild his battered organization, Adiong said.

The Marawi siege, which began on May 23 last year, killed more than 1,100 people, mostly militants. It left the city in rubble, caused President Rodrigo Duterte to place the southern third of the largely Roman Catholic country under martial law and prompted fears that the Islamic State group was gaining a foothold in the Asian region. Sporadic offensives continue against militants in other southern provinces.

Adiong said it would take an effective counterradicalization program and other social programs to fight new generations of militants.

“The government’s program against these terrorists should really be good, long-term and comprehensive,” he said. “It won’t just take bullets to defeat them.”