Gunmen descend on Philippine village in daybreak attack

Five civilians are missing after gunmen attacked a military outpost near a city where fighters linked to the Islamic State have been battling troops for a month.

Residents board a government vehicle after being rescued by military forces in Marawi City. Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

MARAWI // Islamic militants occupied a primary school and took hostages in a southern Philippine village on Wednesday, a few hours drive from a city where other extremists were fighting a month-long war.

Hundreds of gunmen initially attacked a lightly guarded military outpost at dawn, with about 30 then taking over the school and using civilians as human shields, the military said.

“As of now they are in the school holding the civilians. They are using them as human shields,” Captain Arvin Encinas, spokesman for the army division with responsibility for the area, said by phone.

Capt Encinas said the gunmen had planted improvised bombs around the school, a small building in a rural area, and that soldiers had surrounded it.

There were about 20 hostages taken from houses nearby, but no students, Antonio Maganto, the region’s education spokesman said adding that the exact numbers could not be confirmed.

The unrest occurred in Pigkawayan, a farming town about 160 kilometres from Marawi city where ISIL-linked fighters have been battling troops for a month in a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives.

Armed forces spokesman Restituto Padilla said the attackers at Pikgawayan belonged to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (Biff), one of four groups in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao that have pledged allegiance to ISIL.

Local police said the Biff attack may have been intended to help the militants in Marawi by distracting the military.

Mr Padilla said the gunmen attacked the outpost at daybreak, then exchanged fire with troops in the morning before retreating in a hit-and-run assault typical of Biff fighters who are based in Muslim communities in the area.

About six hours later Capt Encinas reported the hostage crisis at the school.

Mr Padilla confirmed militants had taken over the school, and said the military would seek to broker a solution.

“I hope this will be resolved peacefully and I hope there will be negotiations for the sake of the people they are holding hostage,” he said.

Capt Encinas and Mr Padilla said there had also been skirmishes throughout the day outside of Pigkawayan, which is surrounded by marshlands, mountains and farmlands.

Those areas are largely lawless areas with mixed Muslim-Christian communities where the Biff, other Muslim rebels and political warlords hold sway.

Pigkawayan mayor Eliseo Garsesa said about 200 gunmen were involved in the initial assault.

Muslim rebels have been fighting for more than four decades for an independent or autonomous region in the south of the mainly Catholic nation, with the conflict claiming more than 120,000 lives.

The major rebel organisations have signed, or are pursuing, peace deals with the government, but small hardline groups such as the BIFF have vowed to continue fighting.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the southern region of Mindanao on May 23 immediately after fighters flying the ISIL flag rampaged through Marawi.

Their assault on Marawi ignited an unprecedented urban war that has claimed hundreds of lives and which Mr Duterte has warned is part of an ISIL campaign to establish a base in Mindanao.

The fighting has left Marawi, the most important Muslim city in the Philippines, largely in ruins.

The militants involved in the Marawi fighting are mostly from the Maute and Abu Sayyaf organisations, which have united with the Biff under the ISIL umbrella, according to the government.

The military has said foreign fighters, including those from Chechnya, Indonesia and Malaysia, have also joined the Marawi conflict.

ISIL has ambitions of setting up a caliphate in South-East Asia – home to largely Muslim nations like Indonesia and Malaysia – as the group loses territory in Iraq and Syria.

Mr Garsesa, the town mayor, said local authorities had received text messages over the past several days about an attack somewhere in the area.

The Biff was blamed for attacking at least nine Mindanao towns in 2008, with the assaults claiming about 400 lives and forcing 600,000 people to flee their homes.

* Agence France-Presse