Eight members of a gang that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group were killed in a firefight with military personnel in the southern Philippines, officials said yesterday.
The hour-long battle took place on Thursday in Palimbang, a remote town in the nation’s south.
The militants were from Ansar al-Khalifa, a small group that declared its support for Islamic State in a video circulated on the Internet last year, regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan said.
The Philippine military has said that support for Islamic State — which controls territory in Syria and Iraq — in the Philippines was limited to local bandits claiming allegiance to the group.
However, it has said there is no evidence showing that such gangs are supported by the Islamic State.
The larger Abu Sayyaf group — a US-listed terrorist organization that is holding at least four foreign nationals hostage and has demanded millions of dollars in ransom — has likewise pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Tan told reporters that five black flags similar to those used by Islamic State, or ISIS, fighters were recovered from the militants after the clash.
“This group is trying to ride on the popularity of the ISIS, but they’re not really ISIS,” he told reporters. “We view them as mere criminal gangs.”
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