[ALMASDARNEWS] Besieged ISIS bandidos bully boys are putting up a determined fight for Marawi, the quiet provincial capital of Lanao Island in the southern Philipines, although jihadist belligerents have been contained in a downtown pocket of some 500 buildings stretching across four districts.
According to Lieutenant General Jo-Ar Herrera, six turbans of the ISIS-linked Maute and 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... groups were killed during counter-insurgency efforts on Sunday alone. He added that an estimated 60 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.... fighters were still fighting, down from 500 when the battle initially began two months ago.
"We are gaining more ground. The rebel-held area is getting smaller. We are committed and focused to finish the job as soon as possible," Herrera said.
On the other hand, Amaq Agency claimed 10 Philippine troops were killed on Tuesday alone, thus signifying the remaining jihadist rebels to be ready to fight to the last man.
With the battle soon entering its third month, some 511 firearms have been seized by government troops since the battle began while 1,723 residents have been rescued from ISIS-held residential areas according to a military source.
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07/20/2017 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Indonesia has banned the Hizbut Tahrir ...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate... group under a controversial presidential decree that gives officials the authority to disband organizations deemed to threaten national unity.
The legal status of Hizbut Tahrir, which campaigns for the country to adopt Islamic law and become a caliphate, was revoked on Wednesday to protect Indonesia's unity, according to Freddy Hari, the director-general of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
The group condemned the ban and said it "will not remain silent", vowing to challenge the decision in court.
The government's move comes a week after President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo signed a presidential decree that gives the government almost unfettered power to ban groups that go against "national unity and the existence of the Indonesian nation".
Legal expert Refly Harun said it was the first time in the reform era that the government had disbanded an organization without due process of law.
"The presidential decree is a blank cheque for the government to disband any group without due process of law," he told the AFP news agency.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.