Philippine Troops Recover $1 Million Left Behind by IS-linked Militants in Marawi

Jeoffrey Maitem and Richel V. Umel
2017.06.06
Marawi, Philippines
170606-MARAWI-620.jpg Rescue team members signal to trapped civilians to come out into the open amid buildings destroyed by bombs from Philippine fighter jets during clashes with extremists in the southern city of Marawi, June 4, 2017.
[handout/Rescue Team]

Updated at 9:04 a.m. ET on 2017-06-07

Philippine troops said Tuesday they had recovered 52.2 million pesos (more than U.S. $1 million) in cash left behind by Islamic State-inspired militants after house-to-house combat in the southern city of Marawi.

Marines recovered the bundles of banknotes and a machine gun hastily abandoned by the extremists, in a sign that the gunmen aided by foreign fighters have been weakened after two weeks of battles that saw Philippine forces drop bombs onto rebel positions, regional military commander Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez said.

Soldiers turned over the money to the authorities on Monday, Galvez said.

Galvez said government forces slowly advanced to safely extricate hundreds of civilians believed to be still trapped in areas controlled by gunmen with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Maute gang, whose members have sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

“We will persevere in taking steps to minimize the hardships of our people in Marawi when they come back home,” Galvez said. “Our soldiers are committed to make all possible actions to free all trapped civilians in Marawi even at risk of their own lives.”

The militants have been fleeing Marawi with some posing as civilians who pass through a strict military cordon, he said.

“Most of them have fled and blend with civilians as evacuees. They left their weapons in houses where they are hiding,” he said, referring to the gunmen. “This is an indication that they are already weak.”

On Tuesday morning, police said they had arrested the father of the Maute brothers, leaders of the Maute gang that has engaged in gun battles with government troops since May 23 in Marawi.

Davao City police chief Alexander Tagum said Cayamora Maute was arrested with his wife, son-in-law and daughter-in-law while aboard a van at a checkpoint in the southern city of Davao, President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown.

Cayamora tried to conceal his identity “by wearing a face mask and sporting a clean-cut image,” which drew suspicion from the authorities, Tagum said.

He described Cayamora as “the first Maute member in the gallery of terrorists who is also a suspected Maute leader.”

Militants flying black IS flags tore through Marawi two weeks ago, burning business establishments, a hospital and other buildings after a joint police and military team was sent to arrest Abu Sayyaf chief Isnilon Hapilon, the acknowledged local IS leader.

But they were surprised to encounter a large group of fighters backed by the Maute gang and fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, among other foreign extremists. The militants also seized a Filipino Catholic priest and about 200 Filipino civilians.

Duterte promptly placed the entire southern region of Mindanao under martial law, giving the military extraordinary powers to bring back peace and order.

The gunmen managed to take over the city proper, where they have been holding out against the troops. At the weekend, they agreed to a short humanitarian corridor and dozens of civilians were rescued, some unable to walk and others in bad medical condition.

US gives more than 600 weapons

More than 180 people have died in the fighting, a large number of whom were militants, according to Philippine officials. Thirty-nine soldiers and policemen and 24 civilians were also slain, including a group of soldiers accidentally killed by a Philippine government airstrike.

On Monday, President Duterte offered huge bounties for any information leading to the arrest of Hapilon and two Maute brothers leading the fight.

The United States, the Philippines’ close ally for more than half a century, is aiding in the fight by providing the Filipino forces with additional military hardware. On Monday, it delivered more than 600 weapons, including machine guns, pistols and grenade launchers.

“This equipment will enhance the (Philippine Marines') counter terrorism capabilities, and help protect (soldiers) actively engaged in counter terrorism operations in the southern Philippines,” a U.S. Embassy statement said.

U.S. troops have also been helping Filipino soldiers by giving them technical assistance, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Joar Herrera.

“Some of them visited here for technical assistance,” Herrera told reporters in Marawi, but declined to elaborate. But American assistance against the Abu Sayyaf was previously confined to gathering intelligence information through surveillance.

“We have a cooperation in terms of training,” he said. “That's all that we're doing.”

According to Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, the Philippine government for several years in the first decade of this century, had “ceded leadership for the battle against the ASG to the U.S. Special Forces.”

“And what did that accomplish? The supposed crown jewel of U.S. counter-insurgency efforts had zero impact in weakening Abu Sayyaf,” Jones told BenarNews in an interview this week. “This was supposed to be the crown jewel of American efforts, yet ASG just moved out to Jolo and then regrouped and eventually moved back to Basilan.”

“I suppose it all comes down to the fact that the central government has never really challenged the Mindanao-based warlords but has rather seen them as important political allies; when a few of them went over to ISIS, the government had no appropriate tools to challenge them,” she added, referring to IS by another acronym.

Dennis Santos in Davao City contributed to this story.

An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Cayamora Maute.


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