MARAWI CITY–Security forces bombed Marawi City on Thursday as they battled Islamist militants who were holding hostages and reported to have murdered at least 11 civilians.
An initial rampage by the gunmen, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, through the mainly Muslim city of Marawi on Tuesday prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to impose martial law across Mindanao.
Authorities said ending the crisis was proving extremely hard because, although there were only 30 to 40 remaining gunmen, the militants were moving nimbly through homes, had planted bombs in the streets and were holding hostages.
Intense gunfighting could be heard constantly throughout the day, according to an Agence France-Presse reporter in the city, and the military said it had dropped bombs on residential neighborhoods.
“We are using surgical airstrikes,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Jo-Ar Herrera told reporters in Marawi shortly before big clouds of black smoke rose from a bombed area near the provincial government building.
Most of Marawi’s 200,000 residents had fled the city, but Herrera said those who remained had been warned to get out of the areas where there was bombing and fighting.
“We are requesting our people in Marawi to go to safe places… and to stay indoors,” he said.
Five soldiers, two policemen and 13 militants have died in the three days of fighting, the authorities said.
Herrera said two civilians had also been killed inside a hospital that the gunmen had occupied on Tuesday, and the military was investigating reports that nine people had been murdered at a checkpoint the militants had set up.
GMA-7 showed images of nine bullet-riddled bodies lying in a field with their hands tied together.
Duterte said on Wednesday that one of the policemen killed was similarly caught at a checkpoint set up by the militants, then beheaded.
The militants are also holding between 12 and 15 Catholic hostages abducted from a church, according to the local bishop, Edwin dela Peña.
Ground troops continued to battle Maute extremists on three fronts outside the city.
In the three days of skirmishes in Marawi City, seven troopers, including two officers were killed while 33 others were also wounded in fightings outside of the city.
Herrera said the three villages of Gadungan, Basak and Dangan were the site of military clearing operations.
“At present, there is sporadic fighting in the three villages that our troops are clearing,” Herrera said.
Dozens of tanks and infantry remained in Marawi City and its perimeter, searching for the remnants of the Maute group.
Herrera also said Abu Sayyaf chieftain Isnilon Hapilon, who was the target of a failed raid, was still somewhere in Marawi City, according to intelligence reports.
The fighting erupted on Tuesday after security forces raided a house where they believed Hapilon, the local head of IS, was hiding.
The United States regards Hapilon as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, offering a bounty of $5 million for his capture.
The raid went spectacularly wrong as dozens of gunmen emerged to repel the security forces, then went on a rampage across the city while flying black IS flags.
The gunmen belonged to the Maute group, which along with Hapilon’s faction of the Abu Sayyaf, had pledged allegiance to IS, authorities said.
The militants raided two jails, leading to the escape of more than 100 inmates, said Mujiv Hataman, the governor of a Muslim self-rule area that includes Marawi.
They also set fire to many buildings, including a church and a university.
An enraged Duterte, who was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, declared martial law shortly after the fighting erupted and cut short his trip to fly home and deal with the crisis.
“It is brutality, cruelty,” Duterte said on Wednesday after flying back to Manila.
Duterte said martial law was required throughout the southern region of Mindanao, home to 20 million people, to stop the rising threat of hardline militants aligned to IS.
Muslim rebels have been fighting since the 1970s for an independent or autonomous homeland in Mindanao, with the conflict claiming more than 120,000 lives.
The main Muslim rebel groups are now involved in peace talks with the government.
But the Abu Sayyaf, Maute and other hardline groups want to set up an Islamic caliphate in the south for IS, according to Duterte and security analysts.
Duterte said Wednesday he may impose martial law throughout the rest of the country if he believed the terrorism threat was spreading.
The President, who has waged a controversial war on drugs that has claimed thousands of lives, warned martial law would be “harsh” and similar to military rule imposed by dictator Ferdinand Marcos a generation ago.
On Thursday, Duterte told Congress that the ISIS-inspired Maute local terrorist group’s recent acts of terrorism only prove their capacity to sow terror not only in Marawi City but in other parts of Mindanao, as he sought to justify his declaration of martial law.
Duterte said the Maute group’s takeover of a hospital, establishment of several checkpoints, burning of public and private properties, and flying the flag of Islamic State in several areas, prove that a rebellion is ongoing in the country’s south, necessitating martial law.
The Maute group is “openly attempting to remove from the allegiance to the Philippine government this part of Mindanao and deprive the Chief Executive of his powers and prerogatives to enforce the laws of the land, and to maintain public order and safety in Mindanao, constituting the crime of rebellion,” Duterte said.
Military officials said about 120 hostages were rescued as government troops regained control over some areas occupied by the Muate group.
Western Mindanao Command Commander Carlito Galvez Jr. said 78 of the 120 hostages were rescued from the government-owned Amai Pakpak Hospital.
They consist of 21 hospital staffs, eight patients, and 49 construction workers. Galvez said the members of the Maute group brought two wounded companions for treatment at the Amai Pakpak hospital on Tuesday.
“In the process, they held captive 78 people in the hospital,” Galvez said.
He said the troops had retaken the hospital by 3 p.m. Wednesday and continued to advance.
He said the remaining 42 rescued hostages were teachers who were trapped inside the campus of the Dansalan College. The Maute group set fire to a school building.
As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, Galvez said, 13 Maute members were killed. Of the total, the troops recovered the remains of the two slain Maute followers.
The government forces recovered an M-16 Armalite rifle and a cache of bomb-making components from the safe house of the Maute group.
Without naming them, Galvez said some politicians were harboring the Maute Group followers.
“Many people in Marawi [City] and in other areas are denying the presence of a looming terrorism threat in their communities. Sadly, we even received reports that there were even politicians are supporting the group in some way,” Galvez said.
He said terrorism needed to be eliminated and completely destroyed “because if left to thrive, it will soon poison our communities and take our freedom and our precious lives away from us.”
“We are therefore calling on all citizens not only those in Marawi [City] but also in other areas of Mindanao to join us in the fight. We have to make noise and disallow these terrorist to destroy our communities. Let us all make a strong stance against this menace before it gets us,” Galvez added.
In Sulu, a soldier was killed while 10 others were wounded in a clash with Abu Sayyaf bandits, officials said.
Capt. Jo-ann Petingaly, Western Mindanao Commandspokesperson, said the clash occurred at around 5:25 a.m. in Barangay Buhanginan, Patikul, Sulu.
Petinglay said the soldiers were on focused military operations when fired upon by the Abu Sayyaf bandits, which triggered the firefight.
Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana Jr., Joint Task Force Sulu commander, said the troops launched the operation following information that a group of bandits with some captives were sighted in the area.
The Abu Sayyaf bandits are still holding captive 27 people, mostly foreigners, in the hinterlands of Sulu.
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to destroy the Abu Sayyaf Group within six months. The deadline will lapse on June 30.
About 80 Abu Sayyaf bandits have been killed since the offensive against them started in January in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.
