Isnilon Hapilon and Omar maute killed in action. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announces the deaths. End of siege is quite near: AFP.

Hapilon and Omar Maute killed.

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In one of the bloodiest struggles to defend its sovereignty, the AFP may seem to be on the verge of declaring victory. The only apprehension is that the administration cannot be too hasty till it is absolutely sure that they had eliminated all terrorists.

In such struggles where the rebels had enough time to fortify their positions, one can never be sure. A great degree of restraint is required before making conclusive statements.

Hence, they delay the intelligence reports only when there is no doubt about their veracity. Still, we cannot delay such reports indefinitely.
Therefore, Delfin Lorenzana, the Defense Secretary of the Philippines, announced today that the last assault may be quite near. He made a categorical statement about the death of the top leadership of the Marawi siege.

However, he exhorted all to wait for the final press release that would be out soon. In the search and destroy missions, the government forces had killed both Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute. Abdullah Maute, Omar’s brother had perished earlier in the cleanup operations by the troops.

Moreover, apart from this declaration, the administration did not disclose further details about the killing of the two terrorist leaders. The Islamic State is losing ground to the moderate factions of the Islamists who are opposed to meaningless violence.

Since the Philippines is one of the disorderly nations with dominance of Islamic rebels, they planned to build an Islamic Caliphate here.

However, they did not contend for the opposition by the patriotic sentiments of the following:
1. President Duterte who is a tough nut to crack. He immediately declared Martial Law in the whole of Mindanao region and refused to negotiate.
2. The local Islamic groups who had been waging a war against successive administrations also opposed the foreign Islamic terrorists who owed
allegiance to the Islamic State.

In fact, the moderates of the islamist factions are grouping up against the hardcore marauders whose only aim is to kill and get killed. The flare-up between the Arab world against Qatar and Al Jazeera stems from their support to the hardcore killers in Islam.

Moreover, Isnilon Hapilon was at the center the whole episode of the siege of Marawi since the attempt to arrest him led to the flare out. He was the Basilan based head of the Abu Sayyaf Group in Basilan. His group ASG is the murderous group that refused to talk to the government on any issue.

He was Emir for Southeast Asia by the Islamic State. The main partners in this siege were the Maute brothers who also owed allegiance to the Islamic State.

The Islamic State-inspired hardcore Islamists were quite close to establishing a wilayat in Marawi when the government launched an offensive to nab Hapilon.

This led to widespread killings and kidnappings; the main leaders may have perished but the officials have not yet declared an end to the conflict.

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Umrao singh
Umraoz.wordpress.com
Monday, October 16, 2017
Written for: Lars-Magnus Carlsson
www.thephilippinepride.com

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