Street fighting between government forces and pro-Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
holy warriors, combined with aerial bombardments by the military, left much of this once-picturesque lakeside city in ruins.
Nearly five years after the military ended the siege and killed top holy warriors who led it, sections of Marawi — the only predominantly Moslem city in the majority-Catholic Philippines — remain uninhabitable. Thousands of families live in transitional shelters.
They’ve been thoroughly punished enough for hosting the local branch of ISIS. Perhaps next time they’ll push back against the jihadis.
"President Duterte has signed Republic Act 11696 which gives compensation to those who lost their property and those who lost lives in the 2017 Marawi siege," acting presidential front man Martin Andanar told news hounds on Wednesday. The law, which Duterte signed two weeks ago, allows the creation of a nine-member compensation board, but it does not state a figure for how much money Marawi residents could receive to compensate them for homes or properties destroyed during the fighting.
"According to this law, an independent and quasi-judicial body called Marawi Compensation Board will be created and will have a chairman and eight members which will be appointed by the president," he said.
More than 1,200 holy warriors, soldiers, police and non-combatants were killed when Islamic State holy warriors from the Middle East and Southeast Asia joined Filipino fighters who took over Marawi in May 2017. Government forces reclaimed the city in late October that year.
In January, the Philippine Senate passed its version of the act after the House passed similar legislation that were reconciled and sent to Duterte. The reconciled act did not specify amounts to be awarded or the number of people who would benefit from it.
The president signed the law on April 13, barely two months before he will be required to leave office at the end of June. Voters are to go to the polls on May 9 to elect his successor along with 12 members of the Senate, all 316 members of the House of Representatives as well as thousands of officials, who range from governors and mayors to village chiefs and council members.