MARAWI — Bomb blasts rocked Marawi City in the southern Philippines on Monday (June 12) as the national flag was raised to mark independence day, almost three weeks after hundreds of Islamist militants overran the town and hunkered down with civilians as human shields. 

Rescue workers, soldiers and firemen sang the national anthem and listened to speeches as three OV-10 attack aircraft darted through the cloudy sky, taking turns to drop bombs on areas where fighters are still holed up.

“To our Muslim brothers there, we want to tell them to stop their meaningless fight because we are all Muslims,” Vice Provincial Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr told the gathering.

Flag ceremonies are normally performed twice a week, but this was the first in the mainly Muslim town since May 23, the first day of the siege, when the militants aligned with the Islamic State (IS) killed and abducted Christians and torched a cathedral.

Almost the entire population of about 200,000 fled from the lakeside town on the Philippines’ southernmost island of Mindanao, but beyond the checkpoints fencing it off there are still some 500 to 1,000 civilians trapped or being held hostage.

As of Saturday, the number of security forces killed in the battle for Marawi stood at 58. The death toll for civilians was 20 and more than 100 people had been killed since the fighting began.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday that he had not expected the battle for Marawi to be as serious as it has turned out to be, while Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said a captured militant had told the military IS chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had directly “incited” the gunmen to attack the city.

The Filipino military has struggled to defeat the heavily-armed gunmen, who have used hostages and pre-existing bomb-proof tunnels to bolster their positions.

“As you know, the target was to liberate Marawi today, June 12, but ... you can see how complex the problem is and how many new developments there are,” Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told reporters in Manila.

Mr Cayetano also said the militants had planned to take over at least two or three cities in Mindanao. Their plot was foiled because troops made a pre-emptive raid on Marawi to capture Isnilon Hapilon, the leader of Abu Sayyaf group and the IS’ “emir” of South-east Asia. 

“We want to coordinate very well with Indonesia and Malaysia so they won’t also suffer in the hands of extremists,” he said. “But the president knew at the start of his term that, as the allies become more successful in Syria and Iraq, they (the IS) will be looking for a land base, and Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will be a potential target to them.”

The seizure of Marawi by fighters allied to the IS, including some from the Middle East, has alarmed South-east Asian nations, which fear the ultra-radical group — on the backfoot in Iraq and Syria — is trying to set up a stronghold on Mindanao that could threaten the region.

Washington said over the weekend that it was providing support to the armed forces of the Philippines to clear the militants from pockets of Marawi. Manila said this was technical assistance and there were no United States “boots on the ground”.

Mr Duterte said on Sunday that he had not sought support from Washington to end the siege and had not been aware that US special forces were assisting. AGENCIES