Philippines says some militants ‘slipped out’ of embattled city
MARAWI CITY: The Philippines military said on Friday that some of the militants who stormed Marawi City in the south of the country last month may have mingled with evacuees to slip away during the battle that has raged for nearly four weeks.
Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said security had been tightened in the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro and the authorities there were on the lookout for suspicious characters who might “attempt to sow some confusion or sow terror.”
“We’re not denying that there’s probably a few who may have slipped along with the evacuees from Marawi going to Iligan and Cagayan de Oro,” he told reporters in Manila, while OV-10 aircraft in Marawi pounded an area where militants have been holed up since May 23.
The military says that up to 200 fighters, most of them from local insurgent groups that have pledged allegiance to Daesh but also some foreign fighters, are holding out, using civilians as human shields and mosques as safe havens.
The attempt by hundreds of well-armed militants to overrun and seal off the city has alarmed governments across Southeast Asia, which fear that Daesh — losing ground in Iraq and Syria — is trying to establish a foothold in their region that could bring a rash of extremist violence.
The defense ministers and military chiefs of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will meet in the Indonesian town of Tarakan, on Borneo island, on Monday to discuss the threat and agree on steps to coordinate better to confront terrorism.
A port town, Tarakan is just south of the Malaysian side of Borneo and looks out across the sea to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, a sprawling island that has been plagued by insurgencies and banditry for decades.
Philippines military spokesman Padilla told reporters that talk of fighters planning attacks in neighboring towns was based on “misinformation that’s being spread by the enemies” and in fact their capacity was severely reduced.