Manila
President Rodrigo Duterte and a martial law spokesperson both predicted that the military will soon clear a southern Philippine city from Daesh-inspired Filipino Muslim terrorists whose attack began on May 23.
Marawi City will be cleared of terrorists “slowly but surely,” Eastern Mindanao Command deputy commander and Mindanao martial law spokesperson Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay said in a report that reached the military headquarters in Manila on Friday.
“We are strengthening maritime security and enhancing our border-crossing stations [in Mindanao],” Gapay said, referring to two of six cross-border stations in Eastern Mindanao.
The military has activated other task forces against counterterrorism in Mindanao, Gapay said.
Military spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla reported that Marawi’s death toll reached d 429, including 303 Islamists, 82 military and policemen, 44 civilians.
Troops have rescued some 1,713 residents who were trapped in Marawi City’s war zone. Government forces have recovered 382 firearms that were abandoned by the extremists. Troops are recovering bodies of people who were slain in conflict areas. Military operations are continuing in four villages still held by the Filipino-Muslim terror groups.
Clearing operations are ongoing in 15 villages that were held earlier by the Filipino-Muslim terror groups. The terror groups held earlier 19 of Marawi City’s 96 villages, Padilla said.
The government is now looking forward, Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said, adding, “Interagency meetings and consultations preparatory to the rehabilitation, reconstruction and rebuilding of Marawi when hostilities end have begun and are ongoing.”
The government is winning the war against Daesh, President Rodrigo Duterte predicted in a speech before policemen at Camp Quintin M. Merecido in Davao City on Thursday, transcript of which reached the presidential palace in Manila on Friday
“By the way it’s evolving now, I think that it will be over in a matter of days, before the end of the month, it will be over, We are winning the war. Do not worry,” Duterte said.
The conflict in Marawi started on May 23, when government troops failed to arrest Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon in an apartment in Marawi City where he was being elected as head of Daesh branch in Mindanao.
Apart from the 28-year old Abu Sayyaf, members of the eight-year old Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, four-year old Maute Group, three-year old Ansarul Khilafah Philippines, and foreign militants jointly attacked Marawi City.
Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao saying that terror groups could attack other provinces in the south and spill to nearby areas in Southeast Asia’s Indonesia and Malaysia.
