The five-month long Islamic State siege of Marawi city could be over within the week, Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said this morning, after he confirmed the deaths of Abu Sayyaf leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute by government forces earlier today.
The two IS leaders were killed in an early-morning assault on a building in central Marawi city by Philippines forces after a tip-off from a female hostage freed earlier this week. Seventeen more hostages were also freed from the ruined city.
“Yes they are confirmed dead,” Mr Lorezana told a news conference this morning. “We may announce termination of hostilities in a couple of days.”
Troops were now hunting down the last-known surviving leader of IS forces in Marawi, former Malaysian Islamic studies professor Mahmoud Ahmad, he added.
“According to some reports he is still hiding in one of the buildings and that’s what we are trying to do now.”
Authorities believe the deaths of Hapilon, Islamic State’s so-called Southeast Asia emir and on the FBI’s most-wanted list, and Omarkhayam Maute, the last surviving commander of the local Maute terror group, has delivered the final blow to the remaining militants hiding out in the southern Mindanao city.
Within a few hours of the fatal gunbattle, pictures of the two IS commanders’ bodies _ Hapilon’s bearded face smeared with blood _ were circulating on social media.
The conflict, which has so far claimed more than 1000 lives and displaced about 350,000 civilians, has raised fears across Southeast Asia that southern Philippines could become a new base for Islamic State militants and a launching pad for terror attacks across the region.
But Mr Lorenanza said the deaths of the two leaders would “help eradicate” the last holdout militants in Marawi and lead to the inevitable defeat of other IS-affiliated terror cells in Basilan, Sulu and central Mindanao.
Omarkhayam’s older brother, Abdullah Maute, was reported by the Philippine army to have been killed in August, though his body has not yet been found.
“Yesterday (Philippines forces) were able to get testimony from a hostage who was able to confirm the presence of Isnilon and Maute in that particular building and that is the one we assaulted first thing this morning,” Mr Lorenzana told reporters in Manila.
“They will be subjected to DNA tests because there are rewards coming from foreign countries and also from us. Maute had 1 million pesos ($25,000) on his head and Isnilon $US5 million ($6.3 million) and 10 million pesos ($250,000) from us _ so it is huge money.”
Once a cessation of hostilities was announced _ most likely this week _ “we will assess entire Mindanao if there is a need to recommend to president a lifting of martial law”, he added.
Mr Lorenzana said the military was now preparing for an expected retaliation from remaining Maute militants over the death of their commander.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the whole of Mindanao island just hours after some 500 Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants seized parts of Marawi City on May 23 and declared their intention to establish an Islamic State caliphate in Southeast Asia.
Among the fighters were militants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of the Middle East, as well as child and teenaged soldiers.
The militants initially seized more than 1000 civilian hostages though authorities yesterday estimated as few as 20 civilians remained captive inside the now destroyed city, traditionally the seat of Islamic learning in the Philippines’ Muslim-majority south.
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