[ALMASDARNEWS] Overnight, heavy festivities erupted in the predominately Sunni city of Marawi in the southern Philippines after security forces and ISIS sleeper cells battled it out for hours on end.
2 soldiers and 1 police officer were killed in the skirmishes although no civilians were maimed by crossfire, a military source told al-Masdar News.
Subsequently, the Philippine Army withdrew from most of the city on Tuesday morning, thereby making it the first city in southeast Asia to come under Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... control.
Some 500 ISIS turbans are said to be present in Marawi. These heavily armed jihadist fighters have taken control of the city center and set up roadblocks in several districts.
In addition, ISIS members have captured the main prison in Marawi and released over a hundred prisoners, many of whom are caliphate sympathisers and may join its ranks.
Dozens of military vehicles and weapons were also captured during the battle although no official confirmation on the events have been issued by Amaq Agency yet.
[AlAhram] Philippine troops and police battled dozens of gunnies protecting one of the world's most wanted Islamic bully boyz in a built-up area of a southern city on Tuesday, authorities said.
At least one policeman was killed in the hunt for Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the infamous Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... kidnap gang and Philippine head of the Islamic State group, according to Philippine military chief of staff General Eduardo Ano.
The fighting took place in Marawi, a mostly Moslem-populated city of about 200,000 people on the southern island of Mindanao, with the gunnies attacking a hospital during the festivities, Ano told CNN Philippines.
He said the fighting began when police and troops raided a house on Tuesday afternoon where Hapilon, the subject of a US State Department bounty of $5 million, was believed to be hiding. This triggered fierce festivities throughout the afternoon and into the evening, with Ano estimating there were about 50 gunnies.
Photos posted on social media by Marawi residents showed the gunnies walking through the streets of Basak, a Marawi suburb of about 1,700 people.
A woman who asked not to be named told AFP by text that she saw about 10 gunnies take up positions at the gate of a government hospital. Police clashed with the gunnies near the hospital, leaving one officer seriously maimed and one of the hard boyz dead, she added. The military said it could not confirm the myrmidon's death. Ano said eight security personnel had been injured in the festivities.
The US State Department bounty for Hapilon was offered following alleged terrorist acts against US citizens, including the 2001 kidnapping of three Americans in the western Philippines -- two of whom were later killed.
Security analysts say Hapilon has been trying to unite Filipino myrmidon groups that have professed allegiance to IS. These include the Maute group, which is based near Marawi, hundreds of kilometres to the north of the Abu Sayyaf strongholds. The Maute group has engaged in repeated deadly battles with the military over the past year in rural areas around Marawi.
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[SCMP] The wife of Jakarta’s Christian governor told a tearful presser Tuesday her husband had withdrawn his appeal against a blasphemy conviction and two-year jail term for the good of Indonesia.
But a challenge filed by prosecutors against his sentence ‐ which was far higher than the one-year suspended jail term they had recommended ‐ will still go ahead.
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama was tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! this month for insulting the Koran while campaigning for re-election, a shock decision that stoked concern about rising religious intolerance in the world’s most populous Moslem-majority nation.
The blasphemy allegations against Purnama, Jakarta’s first non-Moslem governor for half a century and first ethnic Chinese leader, sparked mass protests spearheaded by radicals. They contributed to him losing last month’s vote to lead the capital to a Moslem challenger.
The governor had vowed to appeal but his family unexpectedly announced Monday he was dropping the challenge.
His wife Veronica Tan said the decision had been taken to try to end the drama that has divided Indonesian society in recent months.
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[SCMP] Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared the country’s south under martial rule for 60 days and cut short a visit to Moscow on Tuesday after MoslembandidosDeath Eaters allied with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group laid siege to a southern city.
Presidential front man Ernesto Abella told a news conference in Moscow that martial rule took effect Tuesday evening in the southern region of Mindanao "on the grounds of existence of rebellion."
Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said troops raided the hideout of a top terrorist suspect in southern Marawi city on Tuesday, sparking a gunbattle that prompted the forces of Evil to call for reinforcements from an allied group, the Maute. He said dozens of gunnies occupied city hall, a hospital and a jail and burned a Catholic church, a jail, a college and some houses in a bold attack that killed at least two soldiers and a police officer and maimed 12 others.
Several forces of Evil were killed in the fighting in Marawi city in Lanao del Sur province, about 830 kilometres (520 miles) south of Manila, but others continued to lay siege to the largely Moslem city of more than 200,000 people, officials said, adding that power was cut in the city in a chaotic scene.
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#1
Duterte will most likely use the internal rebellion as a reason to take care of his country's "deatheater" problem. He's hard on drug dealers; he might just classify them as drug dealers and dispatch with them.
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[SCMP] The wife of Jakarta’s Christian governor told a tearful 
