Malaysians, Arabs among foreign fighters killed in Marawi

MARAWI — Foreign fighters, including Chechens and Arabs, are among Muslim militants who were killed in weeklong fighting in a southern Philippine city that involved about 500 gunmen aligned with the Islamic State (IS), said the Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana yesterday.

Mr Lorenzana said in a televised news conference that eight of the foreign militants slain in the intense street combat included a Chechen, a Yemeni, a Saudi and several Malaysian and Indonesian fighters.

Mr Lorenzana said that 25 other militants who died in the fighting had been identified as Filipinos. There were a total of 120 militants killed since last Tuesday, when a failed government raid to capture one of Asia’s top militants in Marawi triggered the siege of the city by the rebels.

A Philippine Air Force plane dropping bombs on militants killed 11 soldiers and wounded seven others in “friendly fire” as government forces were struggling to rout the assailants in Marawi, said the military.

“It is very painful. It’s very sad to be hitting our own troops,” said Mr Lorenzana.

“It’s sad but sometimes it happens in the fog of war.”

Shortly after the violence erupted in the city, President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law across the southern region of Mindanao, home to 20 million people, to quell what he said was an IS bid to establish a base in the mainly Catholic Philippines.

The Marchetti S-211 jet was on a bombing run over militant positions in Marawi on Wednesday when a bomb hit army troops locked in close-range combat with the extremists, who have taken cover in buildings and houses, said military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla.

The plane had made three successful runs before dropping the wayward bomb.

Brig-Gen Padilla said the military has ordered an investigation of the friendly fire, which reflects the difficulty faced by government forces to contain the insurrection despite their overwhelming number and firepower.

“Despite the stringent procedure followed, (that) happens even with the best of armed forces, a case of friendly fire hitting our own troops,’’ Brig-Gen Padilla told The Associated Press.

Military Chief of Staff General Eduardo Ano has ordered an investigation partly to prevent another incident, said Brig-Gen Padilla, as government forces, backed by more than 30 assault aircraft, continue to advance towards the remaining positions of the militants.

At least 25 soldiers and five policemen have also been killed in clashes.

Mr Lorenzana also warned that many militants may have escaped, despite checkpoints throughout the city and surrounding it. “We have reports they are going to some of the towns around Marawi city,” he said.

Mr Duterte said yesterday the rebellion in Marawi city was not the work of rebels from the Maute group — an IS-affiliated terrorist group — but was “purely Isis”, using the other name for the IS.

Reiterating that the radicals in the southern Philippines were getting funding from the illicit drugs trade, Mr Duterte said the Maute brothers, who the militant group is named after, were involved in narcotics. AGENCIES