PHILIPPINE GOVERNOR, FIVE OTHERS KILLED IN ATTACK

Two former soldiers among three arrested in raid on official’s home

Joint Chiefs chair travels to Syria, gets ISIS update

The top U.S. military commander on Saturday visited northeast Syria where American troops and their allies are launching a campaign against the Islamic State group, a U.S. military official said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley met commanders and troops who updated him on the ongoing operations against ISIS, said Col. Dave Butler, spokesperson for Milley. Butler did not say whether Milley met with commanders of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that have been the main ally of U.S. forces in Syria in the fight against ISIS.

Milley’s visit came a day after the U.S. Central Command said American troops and their allies carried more than a dozen joint operations in northeast Syria in February during which five ISIS operatives were killed and 11 detained.

Countries push for EU solidarity on migration

Less than a week after a deadly migrant shipwreck off Italy, five European Union countries on the Mediterranean Sea pushed back Saturday against their northern neighbors for not accepting asylum seekers under a voluntary relocation initiative.

The ministers responsible for migration policy in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain met in Malta’s capital, Valletta, ahead of an EU ministerial meeting in Brussels this week on migration. The countries started working together as the MED 5 in 2021 to confront the challenges of illegal migration.

Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi told reporters that just 1 percent of the migrants who arrived in those front-line nations along the EU’S southern border last year were taken in by other EU members under a voluntary relocation program.

“We cannot continue to talk about the need to impose more responsibility on front-line member states, if there is not an equally prescriptive and mandatory solidarity mechanism toward the countries of first reception,” Mitarachi said.

Spain’s interior minister pledged to come up with a more effective mechanism when Spain holds the EU’S rotating presidency in the second half of 2023.

Armed men in military gear attacked a provincial governor in the central Philippines on Saturday, killing him and several other people, according to police. Hours later, three were arrested in connection with the case.

The motive for the killing, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on political leaders, was not immediately clear. Initial police reports said that the governor, Roel Degamo, had been at home in the town of Pamplona, in the province of Negros Oriental, when the attack took place.

At least five other people were also killed. They were described as citizens who had been meeting with Degamo to seek aid from the governor’s welfare program.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., calling for a speedy investigation, vowed that the killers would be caught.

“My government will not rest until we have brought the perpetrators of this dastardly and heinous crime to justice,” Marcos said in a statement. “I am warning all those involved in this killing: You can run, but you cannot hide.”

Hours later, police said three men had been arrested in connection with the crime. They were all age 40 to 50; two were described as former soldiers. The police also reported seizing a .45-caliber pistol and ammunition.

A police statement issued before the arrests had said that the perpetrators wore camouflage uniforms and bulletproof vests and carried long guns to carry out their “treacherous attack.”

Degamo, 56, came from a political family and was allied with Marcos. Degamo initially lost his election last May but successfully challenged the results. His disqualified rival, Pryde Henry Teves, served as governor briefly but stepped aside for Degamo.

The vice president, Sara Duterte, expressed her condolences for a “political ally” and “dear friend” in a post on Degamo’s Facebook page. Her post also alluded to unrest in the province, saying, “Authorities must start looking at the political feud that has gripped Negros Oriental and has taken so many lives, not just of Gov. Degamo.”

Violence related to political rivalries is common in the Philippines, where politicians are known to employ private armies.

In last year’s general election, police said they had identified 150 “private armed groups” and had fanned out across the country in an effort to disband them.

Many of these private armies operate in areas far from the capital, Manila, in places where power is determined by political clans, officials have said.

Last month, in the southern Philippine province of Lanao del Sur, four police officers were killed and three others, including the province’s governor, Mamintal Adiong, were injured in a roadside ambush.

In another attack also last month, gunmen disguised as police officers waylaid a van carrying Rommel Alameda, the vice mayor of Aparri, a town in the north, killing him and five companions.