MARAWI SIEGE HAS ENDED BUT NOT IS MILITANCY

KOTA KINABALU— The deaths of key Islamic State (IS) leaders in the Marawi City siege are just a temporary setback as the militant group has sown seeds of hatred deeply in Central Mindanao, an analyst says.

“The battle for Marawi was not just a spur-of-the-moment campaign. It involved thorough planning and preparations since 2014,” said Octavio Dinampo, an antikidnapping activist based in Jolo.

Dinampo said those who failed to emerge would certainly regroup.

On Monday, the military declared an end to five months of urban warfare in Marawi City.

“There are no more militants in Marawi,” Dinampo told reporters.

Two Malaysians—former university lecturer Mahmud Ahmad and former Selayang Municipal Council officer Muhammad Joraimee Awang Raimee aka Abu Nur—were killed in Marawi.

‘From from the truth’

Dinampo said the pronouncement that Marawi had been freed and liberated from the clutch of terrorism “is far from the truth.”

“It is just a matter of time under a new leadership when this same cause will be repeated,” he said, referring to the IS leaders who were killed in Marawi like the brothers Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, IS “emir” for Southeast Asia Isnilon Hapilon and Mahmud.

The militants, Dinampo said, were able to tie up a conventional armed force in an urban war of attrition for almost five months that the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) had failed to do in the past.

He warned that as long as the historical injustices were not redressed, there would be an ample supply of warriors who could be enticed to join the militants anytime before or even after a temporary peace settlement resolved the longstanding Bangsamoro issue.