‘Sometimes I am tempted, really, to declare martial law. Less than a month later, he was tipping martial law across the country, accusing local governments of producing narcotics. ‘It’s not martial law,’ he clarified, but welcomed military and police intervention and called on civilians to comply. Social media was flooded with images of black-clad militants charging down empty streets and reports of civilian deaths, prompting the abrupt end to Duterte’s state visit to Russia and the promise of martial law across all of Mindanao.ĭuterte has previously backed stronger intervention in the region, declaring a ‘ state of lawless violence’ following September’s bombing of a night market in his hometown Davao City. Within hours, Maute Group forces had occupied Amai Pakpak Medical Center, freed prisoners at Marawi City Jail and killed around a dozen military and police officers. Hapilon has been a prime target for counter-terror operations in the Philippines, with scores of close calls over his decades-long career sending him back into hiding again and again, bruised but not defeated.īy Tuesday 23 May, Maute Group forces, brandishing Islamic State flags and weapons, seized Marawi City in direct retaliation for ‘ surgical strikes’ targeting it and Abu Sayyaf. He is believed to have become the head of Islamic State operations for the entire Southeast Asia region last year, commanding a dozen or so smaller cells with affiliations to the group. Hapilon, a former leader of both the Moro National Liberation Front, an Islamic separatist group, and the terror group Abu Sayyaf, has long been a fixture on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Renewed efforts to shut down terror operations in the Philippines once and for all have zeroed in particularly on Abu Sayyaf on the resort island of Bohol, as well as across Mindanao, with the manhunt for Isnilon Hapilon serving as the lynchpin in escalations last week. The declaration of martial law amid the bloody insurgency has found far more supporters than critics, and raises questions about the immediate future for the archipelago. The shocking siege in Marawi City in the Philippines island of Mindanao this past week represents the apex of heightening violence between Islamic militants and counter-terror forces, alongside inevitable strong-arming from President Rodrigo Duterte.
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