(Eagle News) — The Philippine military said that the number of civilians killed by rebel atrocities in Marawi City could be higher than earlier figures after the recovery of 17 dead bodies, five of them decapitated.
Task Force Marawi Spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera said, the discovery of the five victims would be the first evidence that the Islamist militants were beheading some of the civilians trapped in besieged Marawi city, as had been previously reported by some of the civilian witnesses who had escaped from the area.
“The recovered cadavers are believed to be among those civilians who were helplessly martyred, murdered by the Maute-Abu Sayaff Group terrorists. This is a manifestation that the Maute terrorist group brutality killed these innocent civilians in cold blood,” Herrera said.
The battle for Marawi entered its 37th day on Thursday, with intense gunfights and bombing in the heart of Marawi City. Black-clad men can also be seen from afar running between buildings as explosions rang out. It could not however be determined if they were Islamist terrorists.
The rebels’ hold on Marawi, while incurring the full force of a military for years trained by its US counterparts, has much of the region on edge, concerned that Islamic State’s influence may run deeper than thought.
Those fears are also being felt in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose nationals are among the Maute group of rebels fighting in Marawi, suggesting the group may have built a cross-border network that has gone largely undetected. (with a report from Reuters)