Islamic State brutality in the Philippines. More than 100 dead, thousands fleeing their homes.— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) May 29, 2017
via @CNN pic.twitter.com/wOsmlIfcia
Teenage #ISIS fighters are shooting people for failing to quote the Koran in a besieged Philippines cityhttps://t.co/O0Y9dj8XKv pic.twitter.com/rFXUPMwYZ4— Lalo Dagach (@LaloDagach) May 30, 2017
The Daily Mail, UK
written by Gareth Davies
Tuesday May 30, 2017
Teenage ISIS fighters are said to be shooting people dead for failing to quote the Koran in a besieged Philippines city.
As 50,000 people fled the city of Marawi in the south of the country, some reported the terror they had left behind.
Terrified residents reported young jihadis taking orders from commanders in their early 20s to force people to recite verses of the Islamic scripture, but when they failed, they would be shot dead to a chorus of laughter.
Philippine authorities on Tuesday warned Islamist militants occupying parts of a southern city to surrender or die, as attack helicopters pounded the gunmen's strongholds where up to 2,000 residents are still feared trapped.
More than 100 people have been confirmed killed in the conflict, which began last week when gunmen waving black flags of the Islamic State (IS) group rampaged through the mostly Muslim-populated city of Marawi.
Tens of thousands managed to flee and one woman told The Telegraph her decision to leave was sealed when she witnessed teenage jihadis laughing at innocent people being shot.
President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the entire southern region of Mindanao, home to roughly 20 million people, in response to the crisis as he warned that local militant groups were uniting behind IS and becoming a major security threat.
But the militants, initially estimated by the nation's defence chief to number just 100, have withstood eight days of intense air assaults and street-to-street combat, prompting the government's threats on Tuesday.
'We call on the remaining terrorists to surrender while there is an opportunity,' military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said in a statement.
'For the terrorists, not surrendering will mean their sure death.'
Padilla also said the surrender call warning was aimed at limiting the loss of more lives and property.
Up to 2,000 residents were trapped in areas held by the militants, according to the local government, and the International Committee of the Red Cross had voiced alarm they would be caught in the bombing raids or crossfire.
The militants also took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage at the start of the crisis, and their fate remains unknown.
The militants released a video in which they threatened to kill the hostages, according to a report by the SITE Intelligence Group on Monday that could not be verified.
And clashes on Tuesday appeared to be as intense as previous days as military helicopters fired rockets repeatedly on that part of the city and black smoke rose from the buildings that were apparently hit.
The gunmen were being backed by foreign fighters, including those from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, authorities said.
The militants had killed at least 19 civilians, while 20 security forces and 65 gunmen had died, according to the military.
The death toll looked likely to climb, with soldiers reporting the smell of corpses in a public market still being held by the militants.
Martin Thalmann, deputy head of the ICRC's Philippine delegation who is in Marawi, also said on Monday his staff had received reports from people trapped inside the militants' areas that residents had died from stray bullets and sickness.
The violence began when dozens of gunmen went on a rampage in response to an attempt by security forces to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as the local leader of ISIS.
Hapilon, a senior member of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang, is on the US government's list of most-wanted terrorists.
He was being protected in Marawi by the local Maute group, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Hapilon, the Maute and other militants had been planning a major attack on Marawi, one of the few Islamic cities in the mainly Catholic Philippines with a population of 200,000 people, armed forces chief General Eduardo Ano said.
He said they were planning to launch the assault to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on the weekend, but the raid on Hapilon triggered them to attack earlier, according to Ano.
Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines has claimed more than 120,000 lives since the 1970s.
The main Muslim rebel groups have signed accords with the government aimed at forging a final peace, giving up their separatist ambitions in return for autonomy.
The Maute, the Abu Sayyaf and other hardline groups are not interested in negotiating and have in recent years looked to IS to help them.
The Marawi violence was intended to highlight their credentials to IS, security analysts have said.
Duterte said Saturday he was prepared to enforce martial law for as long as was necessary to end the terrorist threat.
The Islamic fighters are said to be well-armed and resilient and experts have warned that with ISIS weakened in Syria and Iraq, battered by years of American-led attacks, Mindanao could become a focal point for regional fighters.
The fighters' support network in Marawi remains unclear, though the power of one militant group - the Mautes - has grown in recent years.
Led by members of the city's Maute clan, the group has become increasingly active across Lanao del Sur province, where Marawi is located, and has been instrumental in the fighting this past week.
Priest among 14 hostages taken in siege of Philippines city https://t.co/73FJVeAyhY— The Daily Star (@DailyStarLeb) May 24, 2017
The Daily Star, Lebanon
written by AP staff
Wednesday May 24, 2017
Muslim extremists abducted a Catholic priest and more than a dozen churchgoers while laying siege to a southern Philippine city overnight, burning buildings, ambushing soldiers and hoisting flags of the Islamic State group, officials said Wednesday.
President Rodrigo Duterte has declared martial law in the southern third of the nation and warned he would enforce it harshly.
The violence erupted Tuesday night after the army raided the hideout of Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf commander who is on Washington's list of most-wanted terrorists with a reward of up to $5 million for his capture. The militants called for reinforcements from an allied group, the Maute, and some 50 gunmen managed to enter the city of Marawi.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said the militants forced their way into a cathedral in Marawi and seized a priest, 10 worshippers and three church workers.
The priest, Father Chito, and the others had no role in the conflict, Villegas said.
"He was not a combatant. He was not bearing arms. He was a threat to none," Villegas said of Chito. "His capture and that of his companions violates every norm of civilised conflict."
Villegas says the gunmen are demanding the government recall its forces.
Duterte declared martial rule for 60 days in the entire Mindanao region, the restive southern third of the Philippine archipelago. He had vowed to be "harsh."
"I warned everybody not to force my hand into it," Duterte said on a plane en route to the Philippines on Wednesday. "I have to do it to preserve the republic."
Martial law allows Duterte to harness the armed forces to carry out arrests, searches and detentions more rapidly. He has repeatedly threatened to place the south, the scene of decades-long Muslim separatist uprisings, under martial law. But human rights groups have expressed fears that martial law powers could further embolden Duterte, whom they have accused of allowing extrajudicial killings of thousands of drug suspects in a crackdown on illegal drugs.
Details from inside Marawi were sketchy because the largely Muslim city of more than 200,000 people appeared to be largely sealed off and without electricity.
"The whole of Marawi city is blacked out, there is no light, and there are Maute snipers all around," Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said late Tuesday in Moscow, where he was accompanying Duterte on an official trip. Duterte cut the trip short and headed back to the Philippines.
Lorenzana said dozens of gunmen occupied city hall, a hospital and a jail and burned a Catholic church, a college and some houses in an assault that killed at least two soldiers and a police officer and wounded 12 others.
Hapilon, an Arabic-speaking Islamic preacher known for his expertise on commando assaults, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2014. He is a commander of the Abu Sayyaf militant group and was wounded by a military airstrike in January.
Troops sealed off major entry and exit points to prevent Hapilon from escaping, military chief of staff Gen. Eduardo Ano told The Associated Press by telephone late Tuesday from Moscow, where he was accompanying Duterte.
"We will conduct house-to-house clearing and do everything to remove the threat there. We can do that easily," Ano said, but added it was more difficult in an urban setting because of the need to avoid civilian casualties.
He said the group erected Islamic State flags at several locations.
Duterte met late Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he is counting on Russia to supply weapons for the Philippines to fight terrorism.
"Of course, our country needs modern weapons, we had orders in the United States, but now the situation there is not very smooth and in order to fight the Islamic State, with their units and factions, we need modern weapons," he said, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
While pursuing peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups in the south of this predominantly Roman Catholic nation, Duterte has ordered the military to destroy smaller extremist groups which have tried to align with the Islamic State group.
The Maute group is one of less than a dozen new armed Muslim groups that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and formed a loose alliance with Hapilon reportedly designated as the alliance's leader.
The Maute has been blamed for a bombing that killed 15 people in southern Davao city, Duterte's hometown, last September and a number of attacks on government forces in Lanao, although it has faced setbacks from a series of military offensives.
Last month, troops backed by airstrikes killed dozens of Maute militants and captured their jungle camp near Lanao del Sur's Piagapo town. Troops found homemade bombs, grenades, combat uniforms and passports of suspected Indonesian militants in the camp, the military said.
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