The Philippine military said militants who had holed up in a primary school in the south early yesterday had retreated after a gunbattle with troops, but were holding some civilians hostage.
There was no word of casualties in the incident at Pigcawayan, which is about 190km south of Marawi, where fighting between government troops and Islamic State group-linked militants has entered its fifth week.
No students were taken hostage at the school, said Brigadier General Restituto Padilla, discounting reports that some children were being held.
He said the militants had retreated from the school and troops were chasing them.
Military spokesman Captain Arvin Encinas said the militants, who call themselves the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), were holding some civilians hostage, but he was not sure how many.
“Definitely, they are holding hostages, that’s why our soldiers are having difficulty because they are using them as human shields,” Encinas said.
Police said about 300 armed men stormed the school early yesterday.
However, Encinas said later only 30 militants were involved.
BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama said that the militants had taken civilians to a safe place, away from any crossfire, and did not intend to hold them hostage.
Asked if they would be freed, Mama said: “Yes. We’re not kidnappers.”
Padilla said the incident at Pigcawayan was not related to the fighting in Marawi.
“This has come from a group that has long committed harassment,” he said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS