Tag Archives: Philippine

Exclusive: Philippines’ Duterte proposed deal to end city siege, then backed out

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers a speech during the 70th Philippine Air Force (PAF) anniversary at Clark Air Base in Angeles city north of Manila, Pampanga province, Philippines July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Martin Petty

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was preparing to make a deal with Islamic State-inspired militants in the days after they laid siege to a southern city, but aborted the plan without explanation, an intermediary involved in the process said.

Agakhan Sharief, a prominent Muslim leader, told Reuters that after a band of Islamist fighters overran parts of Marawi City on May 23 and took hundreds of people hostage, he was approached by a senior Duterte aide to use his connections with the Maute militant group’s leaders to start back-channel talks.

Two other Marawi sources familiar with the matter confirmed the president had worked behind the scenes to hold talks with the Maute brothers, Omarkhayam and Abdullah.

However, the process was halted when Duterte in a May 31 speech declared he “will not talk to terrorists”.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Duterte’s about-face.

“The problem with our president, his mind is changing always,” said Sharief, a cleric who has had roles in various peace agreements on the long-restive southern island of Mindanao. “He announced he will no longer talk to terrorists and that made our negotiations cut.”

Duterte’s top peace adviser and his spokesman did not respond to separate requests for comment.

Despite his tough rhetoric and frequent promises to wipe out militants, Duterte has a reputation as a peace-broker, having dealt with separatist and Marxist rebellions during his 22 years as mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, an island of 22 million with a long history of unrest.

DUTERTE’S BIGGEST CRISIS

The battle for control of Marawi has been the biggest crisis of Duterte’s year-old presidency.

Fighters from the Maute group and others loyal to Islamic State have been holed up in the commercial district of the town through more than 40 days of air strikes, artillery bombardments and fierce street clashes with troops.

More than 400 people have been killed, including 337 militants, 85 members of the security forces, and 44 civilians. Some 260,000 residents have been displaced by a siege that has fanned regional fears that Islamic State is trying to establish a stronghold in Southeast Asia.

Marawi Mayor Majul Usman Gandamra confirmed that back-channel talks did start but said he was not privy to details.

He told Reuters the process failed because the rebels did not show good faith or reduce the intensity of attacks on government forces after Duterte offered them an olive branch.

“There was a window of opportunity,” he said. “But there was no show of sincerity.”

REBELS ‘CONVINCED’

Sharief, known locally as “Bin Laden” due to his resemblance to the late al Qaeda leader, would not reveal the identity of Duterte’s aide, whom he said was confidentially assigned to set up a meeting with the Maute clan.

He said the aide agreed that Sharief would accompany the Maute brothers’ influential mother, Farhana, by helicopter to meet Duterte in nearby Cagayan De Oro or Davao City.

Sharief said her sons who requested she represent them in talks with Duterte.

“He (Duterte’s aide) prepared everything that I needed. I told him that I need a chopper to get the mother of the Maute brothers to bring her to the president. He prepared that.”

“I called the Maute brothers and their mother … I told them, I convinced them.”

Sharief said the president was prepared to offer the Maute clan implementation of Sharia law in their hometown, Butig, if he achieves his goal of establishing a federal system in the Philippines.

The talks with the Maute group did not go ahead and the mother was arrested on June 9 elsewhere in the same province as Marawi. The Maute brothers’ father, Cayamora Maute, was apprehended three days earlier in Davao City.

The cleric said that the rebels would have taken Duterte’s deal to end the siege.

“They agreed, they supported this,” said Sharief, who last met with Abdullah Maute on June 25, when he led a group of emissaries into the heart of Marawi to free some hostages during the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

Sharief said he was against the radical ideology of Islamic State but reluctant to speak out against the Maute clan because he still hoped he could convince them to end the siege.

“I am a peacemaker,” he said. “I cannot negotiate anymore if I talk against them.”

(For a graphic on the battle for Marawi, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2sqmHDf)

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by John Chalmers and Bill Tarrant)

Philippine troops find stash of banknotes as fighters pull back

A government soldier carries a box containing 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) cash seized from a vault in a house previously controlled by militants in the Marawi city, Philippines June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Jerome Morales

By Neil Jerome Morales

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippines troops found bundles of banknotes and cheques worth about $1.6 million abandoned by Islamist militants holed up in Marawi City, a discovery the military said on Tuesday was evidence that the fighters were increasingly penned in.

Fighters linked to Islamic State have been cornered in a built-up sliver of the southern lakeside town after two weeks of intense combat. The military said that over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers.

In one house they found a vault loaded with neat stacks of money worth 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) and cheques made out for cash worth 27 million pesos ($550,000).

“The recovery of those millions of cash indicates that they are running because the government troops are pressing in and focusing on destroying them,” Marines Operations Officer Rowan Rimas told a news conference in the town as helicopters on machinegun runs buzzed overhead.

Black smoke poured from an area near one of the town’s mosques and the lake after bombings by OV-10 attack aircraft and artillery fire from the ground.

The battle for Marawi has raised concerns that the ultra-radical Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao.

Officials said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia but also from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The fighters prepared for a long siege, stockpiling arms and food in tunnels, basements, mosques and madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, military officials say. The Philippines is largely Christian, but Marawi City is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Progress in the military campaign has been slow because hundreds of civilians are still trapped or being held hostage in the urban heart of the town, officials have said.

“In a few days, we will we will be able to get everything, we will be able to clear the entire Marawi City,” armed forces Chief of Staff General Eduaro Año said in a radio interview.

‘MAYBE THEY WATCH WAR MOVIES’

Fighting erupted in Marawi after a bungled raid aimed at capturing Isnilon Hapilon, whom Islamic State proclaimed as its “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to the group. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of up to $5 million for his arrest.

On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte offered a bounty of 10 million pesos ($200,000) to anyone who “neutralized” Hapilon, and 5 million pesos for each of the two brothers who founded the Maute group, one of four factions that banded together to take the town.

Police on Tuesday arrested a man who identified himself as the father of the Maute brothers. He was in a vehicle along with other members of his family that was stopped at a checkpoint in Davao City, 260 km (160 miles) to the southeast.

“As a patriarch and the father of the Maute brothers … I guess he can still persuade his sons to stop the fighting in Marawi and once and for all surrender to the government,” regional military spokesman Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay told the news conference.

Armed forces chief Año said about 100 Maute militants were holding out in Marawi, and the military was checking a report that one of the brothers, Omarkhayam, had been killed in an air strike.

Duterte, who launched a ruthless campaign against drugs after coming to power a year ago, has said the Marawi fighters were financed by drug lords in Mindanao, an island the size of South Korea that has suffered for decades from banditry and insurgencies.

Jo-Ar Herrera, a military spokesman, said the discovery of the banknotes and cheques was evidence the militants had links to international terrorist groups. However, he said an investigation was needed to establish the facts.

It is possible that the money came from a bank that was raided on the first day of the siege. Herrera told Reuters last week that a branch of Landbank had been attacked and he had heard that one of its vaults was opened.

A four-hour ceasefire to evacuate residents trapped in the town was interrupted by gunfire on Sunday, leaving some 500-600 inside with dwindling supplies of food and water.

Officials say that 1,469 civilians have been rescued.

The latest numbers for militants killed in the battle is 120, along with 39 security personnel. The authorities have put the civilian death toll at between 20 and 38.

Asked to describe the fighting skills and training of the militants in the town, Major Rimas said: “They have snipers and their positions are well defended. Maybe they watch war movies a lot, or action pictures a lot so they borrowed some tactics from it.”

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)