CLARK, Pampanga — A week after President Rodrigo Duterte declared Marawi City’s liberation from the clutches of the Maute terrorist group, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday announced the termination of all combat operations in the city.
“After 154 days of the siege of Marawi by the Daesh-inspired Maute ISIS group or after a week since the Commander in Chief declared the liberation of Marawi, we now announce the termination of all combat operations in Marawi,” Lorenzana told reporters at the sidelines of the ASEAN defense ministers meeting (ADMM), a high-level regional security forum among member states which is ongoing in Clark, Pampanga.
WATCH: Defense Sec. Delfin Lorenzana announces the official termination of combat operations in Marawi City during an ambush interview on the sidelines of the 11th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Clark, Pampanga
Lorenzana expressed gratitude to other countries that provided firearms and sharing technical intelligence to government troops.
“I would like to thank the nations that helped us. China, US, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei also helped and Singapore, we hope that this operational achievement in Marawi in the Philippines will be the catalyst that shall bring to the fore future cooperation and partnerships not only against terrorism but also those that shall receive other global and security threats,” he said.
“China gave us firearms and ammunition, sniper rifles were used against the terrorists so they are in the frontline while the United States provided intelligence, technical intelligence provided us images of the enemy by their, they have very sophisticated technical intelligence gathering capability,” the Defense Secretary noted.
While the end of the siege will not completely annihilate the ISIS ideology, Lorenzana said this achievement is proof that regional cooperation can prevent the proliferation of terrorism.
“In crushing thus far the most serious attempt to export violent extremism and radicalism in the Philippines and in the region we have contributed to prevent its spread in Asia and give our share in maintaining global peace, stability and security,” he explained.
In a related development, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Eduardo Año confirmed at least 42 bodies of terrorists were found on Monday in two buildings and a mosque in the battle zone.
“After the announcement of the President on the liberation of Marawi last October 17 we conducted mopping up operation and the presence of the Maute ISIS are confined into two big buildings, one of them is a mosque and actually that is where the last fighting occurred, that is also the place where we rescued additional hostages and in that fighting we gave a chance for these militants and terrorists to surrender but they fought to the last breath so wala tayong magagawa and when we counted a total 42 Maute ISIS terrorists were killed (sic),” Año said in an interview with reporters.
“Along with them are two wives of the terrorists who also fought the government troops, we accounted foreign terrorists, at that time mga five na lang, they are part of the 42 so we are very confident na walang nakatakas sa kanila,” the AFP chief added.
The fighting between government troops and Maute terrorists, which lasted almost five months, started last May 23 when the AFP attempted to arrest Hapilon, who was declared the emir of ISIS in Southeast Asia. (PNA)
