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PHILIPPINE TROOPS HAVE killed 89 Islamist militants during more than a week of urban battles but a final showdown is expected to be fierce as the gunmen protect their leaders and hold hostages, authorities said today.
Attack helicopters fired rockets this morning into parts of Marawi, a Muslim city in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines, that were still controlled by the militants fighting under the black flag of the Islamic State (IS) group.
President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the entire southern region of Mindanao in response to the crisis, which he described as the start of a major campaign by IS to establish a foothold in the Philippines.
Eighty-nine militants had been killed in the fighting and the amount of territory in the city that the remaining gunmen controlled had been cut to just 10 percent, military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said today.
However Padilla warned of more intense battles ahead, with the military believing three of the militants’ main leaders were likely still in the city.
“That 10 percent is most likely the area that is heavily guarded and defended by any armed men if they are protecting any individual of high value,” Padilla said.
The militants are also holding an unknown number of civilians hostage, according to Padilla and other authorities.
They initially took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage at the start of the crisis.
A video of the priest appeared on social media yesterday, in which he repeated the militants’ demands to withdraw and said his captors were holding 240 people hostage.
Padilla said the number of people cited in the video as being held hostage could not be verified.
He insisted the release of the footage showed the militants were becoming increasingly desperate and said security forces would not back down.
“They are trapped, they are contained, they are in areas that they will never come up alive unless they surrender,” Padilla said.
‘Terrible’ ordeal
Another major complicating factor was the safety of about 2,000 residents who the local government said remained trapped in the militant-controlled areas, with troops, police and aid workers trying to rescue them.
“It was a terrible situation. We did not have anything to eat,” Jenita Abanilla, 47, a laundrywoman, told reporters at an evacuation centre in Marawi today shortly after heavily armed police brought her to safety.
Abanilla said she, her eight-year-old son, her husband plus eight other neighbours and relatives had often hid kneeling with their faces on the floor of her house.
“We covered the mouths of our children. We were afraid the gunmen would come in and kill us,” she said, adding they were also scared of being hit by military bombs.
Padilla said today the militants had murdered 19 civilians but insisted that the military’s “precision airstrikes” had not killed any of the trapped residents.
Twenty-one security forces had also died, Padilla said, bringing the combined death toll to 129.
The clashes erupted when security forces raided a house to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as IS’s leader in the Philippines and who is on the US government’s list of most-wanted terrorists.
Authorities said they were taken by surprise when dozens of gunmen emerged to protect Hapilon and then went on a rampage through Marawi, the Philippines’ main Islamic city with a population of 200,000.
Hapilon was being protected by members of the local Maute group, a small band of militants who has declared allegiance to IS, according to the government.
Malaysians, Singaporean, Indonesian and other fighters had been involved in the unrest, according to the military.
Hapilon and the two Maute leaders — brothers after whose surname the group is named — were still believed to be in Marawi, local military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera told reporters.
A Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines has killed more than 120,000 people since the 1970s.
The main Muslim rebel groups have signed accords with the government aimed at forging lasting peace, giving up their separatist ambitions in return for autonomy.
The Maute and other hardline groups have rejected the peace process.
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Judge wanted to send out a strong message by handing out 3 years, he then went and suspended it, the mind boggles
The mind would boggle in a normal country. Not here, unfortunately
People get beaten up in Ireland every day. Karma works in mysterious ways. What you put out you will get back. Beware.
Money talks. Justice walks.
And he just let them buy themselves out of doing jail time
A suspended sentence is a strong message for a violent and unprovoked attack? What role are these judges living in?
A most generous judge…..3 vicious thugs…
@Peter fechter: Probably from “good families”, pillars of the community, GAA etc
Suspended sentences, a strong message to continue the thuggery with impunity.
A strong message these days is pay €3000 to the victim after you viciously attacked him and the nice judge will give you s suspended sentence. Ridiculous.
Interesting that you can severely beat a victim, risk killing the victim, but you can buy your way our of a custodial sentence.
The moral is that you can hammer people providing you have the money barely to compensate them for their injuries.
Seriously? The final kick in the teeth was delivered by Judge O’Donnell himself. Farce.
I hope the judge wagged his finger at them as he was suspending the sentence, you know, to make a really strong statement!
Tom O’Donnell needs to be investigated. He must have the worst sentence record ever
“I don’t want to be (seen) as allowing these three young men to buy their way out of these matters”
Wtf? That’s exactly what you’ve done judge, how else are people meant to look at it? What a horrible sentence.
Maybe the ‘judge’ should give attempted murderers a chance to throw doubles to avoid jail.
Utterly farcical.
Legal system is a joke
I was assaulted about 2 years ago, and taken to hospital for the night all in blood.
I got no compensation whatsoever.
The attacker committed suicide roughly 1 year after that.
It would seem you’d have to kill someone before you’re jailed in this country
For five years with the last two suspended.
In a situation like that the favour should be returned to each one of them individually. Make sure they don’t lay a finger on anyone else again. Brave boys.
I wonder if these three would get the same sentence if they attacked a judge?
Wonder if these posh thugs came from different part of Limerick, would the judge be so lenient. Class system always wins.
Based on previous sentences handed down by Irish courts, yes.
There are certain types of employment that would dismiss these gentlemen immediately if they were in any such employment…they would also be refused by many employers on the basis of their convictions.
Peter, are you trying to say that the sentences were justified??
Of course not Dave…too much of a believer in personal responsibility for that….my post was simply to point out the long term implications for these 3 buckos if they were of the type to possess a work ethic each.
Sure the legal system is counting on these guys re-offending…more $$$. A major investigation of why we have a legal system and not a justice system needs to take place.
Weak weak judges and no consequences to such cowardly actions is no deterrent. A quick credit union loan and Bob’s your uncle. Just another nail in the Irish coffin. No justice.
Send out a strong message my ass ……no suspended sentence. ..send them to jail for 5 years full term. That would send a stronger message
Why are cases like this never appealed by the DPP as too lenient
Just once DPP appeal a far too lenient sentence
I think someone should explain to this judge how this is as far from a “strong message” as you can get. No wonder the country is going to shite socially with idiots like this as judges.
Let’s them out to do it all again and then get another suspended sentence for them to do it again and then get……….
Deep remorse my hole. FFS the system is beyond a joke.
Well. Judge. You actually let them buy out of it.
I wonder what a weak message would look like, the Judges words and actions don’t match up.
That poor lad deserves justice, he hasn’t got it. 9 grand would probably buy some though, just a thought.
9 grand is not enough. He should have gotten all their worldly possessions that would teach them.
“I don’t want to be seen to be allowing these 3 men to buy their way out of these matters”… so if you could just cough up 9000 euro there now you can go off home. Good man judge.
3 on 1… real tough guys. should all do time, see how they do inside
At least the public know who the assailants are.But this type of verdict does not deter violent thugs or make the law abiding feel secure
A strong message?!!! What a d!psh!te of a judge.
Obviously, the boyfriend of the woman who the victim was talking to doesn’t know what love is.
Three thousand each!?? Probably not even a month’s wage for each of their parents. Ridiculous.
Talk about insecurity? What w….rs.
These judges are a disgrace in this kip, wanted to send out a strong message, and then suspends their sentence, disgusting
Thick judge
Another idiot Judge!! These guys who beat the poor guy are savages!! “They showed great remorse” said their Counsel!!That’s easily said!! The idiot judge bought it!!!!! No real ramifactions for savage perpetrators!! Our Judicial system STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!!!
The judge noted “their deep remorse”, yeah right once they were caught! I wonder how many others they beat up before that?
The big problem here is that judges simply don’t have the prison places to stick these ba$tards into and for some mad reason it’s now become the norm that judges think that a cash fine or payout solves everything.
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