war against ISIS in Marawi declared over

the battle for Marawi against Islamic terrorists has been declared over and won by the Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. the hostages the terrorists had been holding during the five month battle are now said to have all been rescued. with the liberation of the city complete. and now rebuilding can start. after a prolonged and heavy fighting battle including the use of aircraft bombing which has apparently left only one building standing.

Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has announced that the Marawi City siege is now over, exactly five months after fighting between government troops and ISIS-linked Maute Group started.

“After 154 days of siege in Marawi with Daesh-inspired Maute-ISIS group, after a week the commander-in-chief declared the liberation of Marawi City, we now announce the termination of combat operations in Marawi City,” Lorenzana told reporters on Monday.

The combat operations were ended after terrorists tried to make their last stand inside the main battle area.Government troops found 42 cadavers of suspected terrorists in two buildings and a mosque in the center of the clash.
“There was a firefight and they were finished,” Lorenzana said, adding all remaining hostages have been recovered the past few days.
Armed Forced Chief of Staff General Eduardo Año, meanwhile, said five foreign terrorists as well as two wives of foreign fighters were among those 42 bodies.
“We conducted mopping up operations. The presence of Maute-ISIS is confined in two big buildings and one is a mosque. That is where the last fighting occurred,” he said.

“The Philippine forces, aided by its government and the massive support of the Filipino people, have nipped the budding infrastructure and defeated terrorism in the Philippines,” the defense chief said.

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personally i severely doubt that this one battle has actually defeated terrorism at all. it was just one big battle against Islam in a war that has lasted hundreds of years. true it might curtail some of the Islamic terrorism, at least temporarily. but it has done nothing at all to stop the idealism and hatred behind Muslim terrorism. ideals and hatred that have been passed down especially within family through the generations, will not be stopped because they lost one battle. a family friend once asked their Islamic terrorist, kidnapper (they were rescued after their spouse was murdered) in that part of the country what their goal was. they were told the goal was to become a self ruling caliphate under sharia law. when asked if they would stop the terrorism if the gained independence from the Philippines, and their caliphate. the answer was NO. that that was only a small part of making Islam the ONLY religion in the world. and that all the world needed to be ruled by Islam. and only then would their righteous war be stopped, when all the world worshiped their god.

a reply to: generik

I dont see an end of the fight against ISIS and Islamic terrorism happening anytime soon . Caliphates will just morph into something different . The good thing about these caliphates is that the bad guys are generally speaking concentrated in the one spot . Once they are dissolved the fight becomes much harder . Perhaps there is something to think about there .

The war on terrorism is not meant to be won, its meant to be prolonged or it would have been won long ago..

You merely have to see how terrorism has been constantly redefined and labeled. It is ever evolving to fit the narrative of the moment in order to justify an agenda.

However, it's nice to have a break once in a while as rare as it is.

a reply to: generik

I think it needs to be put into context of what the native mindset is towards things like this esp when viewed from the west.

In Europe if someone is suspected of being a Daesh fighter they will be monitored by so called intelligence agencies even if they have come back from a known war zone with ISIS connections, the public may well have zero knowledge that the guy next door may be a wanted war criminal using every "human rights" loop hole that has been offered to him/her to avoid any repercussion for their actions..


In the Philippines where people have a far more hands on approach that same person is simply dealt with normally with a bullet in the head, being a ISIS terrorist in the Philippines is a far more risky position to be in than in the west. So to some extent by not f#cking around pussy footing along to their BS allowing them to gain traction and to send a simple message of "join this group and see what happens" I believe the odds of these savages to gain ground will be limited.. You will always get a few granted but I know where my money would be on keeping the Islamic issue at bay if I had to bet on say a European country or the Philippines..


On a personal note, the location that I go shooting when I am in PH is a active Army camp, speaking with the Infantry lads there they are motivated like crazy to deal with these people, esp as many of the Islamic peace lovers are not even Filipino and have gained access to the southern Islands illegally from Indonesia. I would not want to be in their cross hairs when they get the green light to start reaching out to touch people..

RA

The fight for marawi may be over . But theres still a very much ongoing battle against islamic militants in southern philippines .

Going to be slow going on rebuilding marawi as they still finding and disarming ieds left behind by the militants .

Overall good job by the philippines army as they didnt have much experience with urban combat and learned along the way as up till marawi most of the insurgency had been jungle warfare .

At least the residents of marawi will soon be able to return home .