Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday threatened to impose martial law nationwide to combat the rising threat of terrorism, after militants beheaded a policeman and took Catholic hostages while rampaging through a southern city.
Duterte on Tuesday declared martial law for the southern region of Mindanao — which makes up about one-third of the country and is home to 20 million people — in an immediate response to the attacks by the gunmen who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.
About 100 militants roamed through Marawi city, taking a priest and an unspecified number of other people hostage from a church, setting fire to buildings and flying black IS flags, Duterte and his aides said.
Photo: EPA
Duterte said they also beheaded a local police chief after capturing him at a road checkpoint they had set up, as he expressed outrage at what he said was the growing threat from militants in Mindanao allied to the IS.
“I will not hesitate to do anything and everything to protect and preserve the Filipino nation,” the president said. “I might declare martial law throughout the country to protect the people.”
Duterte, who has waged a controversial war on drugs that has claimed thousands of lives, said martial law would be “harsh” and similar to military rule imposed by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos a generation ago.
Marcos’ two-decade rule ended in 1986 when millions of people took to the streets in a “people power” revolution. Thousands of critics were jailed, tortured or killed during the martial law era, historians and rights groups said.
“Martial law of Mr Marcos was very good,” Duterte said, as he railed against human rights campaigners and other critics of his drug war.
Duterte said his own version of martial law meant security forces could conduct searches and arrest people without warrants.
He also said there would be curfews for some provinces in Mindanao, and that martial law would remain until the terrorism threat had ended.
The fighting in Marawi erupted on Tuesday after security forces raided a house where they believed Isnilon Hapilon, who is a Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang and Philippine IS group leader, was hiding.
The UN regards Hapilon as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, offering a US$5 million bounty for his capture.
The militants responded to the raid by burning buildings and conducting other diversionary tactics in Marawi, a mostly Muslim city of 200,000 people, Philippine Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana said.
He said two soldiers were killed on Tuesday.
The gunmen also raided a church in Marawi and took the local priest, Chito Suganob, plus an unspecified number of other people hostage, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Philippines Archbishop Socrates Villegas said.
“They have threatened to kill the hostages if the government forces unleashed against them are not recalled,” Villegas said in a statement.
Thousands of residents fled Marawi, said an Agence France-Presse photographer at a military checkpoint near Iligan, the next biggest city about 40km away.
“We heard a lot of gunfire and explosions yesterday. We hid inside, we were too frightened to go out,” a Muslim resident of Marawi, Noraisa Duca, said at the checkpoint.
Authorities reported further skirmishes overnight in Marawi, but it was unclear yesterday how many militants were still in the city or if they had escaped into nearby mountains and forests that they have long used as hideouts.
The Abu Sayyaf, based on the most southern islands of Mindanao, has kidnapped hundreds of locals and foreigners since the early 1990s to extract ransoms.
Security analysts say Hapilon has been trying to unite Philippine militant groups behind the IS group.
These include the Maute group, which is based near Marawi.
Muslim rebels have been waging a rebellion since the 1970s for an independent or autonomous homeland in Mindanao, with the conflict claiming more than 120,000 lives.
The main Muslim rebel groups are involved in peace talks with the government.
However, the Abu Sayyaf, Maute and other groups want to set up an Islamic caliphate in the south for the IS group, security analysts said.
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