...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
-linked turban suspects and captured two others during a clash in the southern Philippines, the military said Thursday.
The shootout broke out when government troops ran into a unit of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group (DI-MG)
...that branch of ISIS in the Philippines founded by two brothers of the Maute family who helped lead the siege of Marawi City in 2017 under Abu Sayyaf/ISIS-Philippines head Isnilon Hapilon. All three were killed there, but their followers carried on under the Maute name...
while on patrol Wednesday in Lumbac, a village in the town of Balabagan in Lanao del Sur province, the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) said."Based on the reports from the ground, Marine troops were conducting focused military operations when they chanced upon the group of Polo Alim, a Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group member," said Lt. Gen. Alfredo Rosario Jr., the commander of WestMinCom.
"A firefight ensued after which [the] enemy withdrew, leaving behind the dead body of one of their slain comrades," he said, adding that Alim escaped but two others were caught.
The military identified the slain fighter as Saipoden Bangka Ayok and the two captured suspects as Datu Saida Abikan and Alimusa Ayon Bagol.
Alim is believed to be a commander of the DI-Maute Group, which in 2017 made up the majority of the Filipino Lions of Islam who took over the southern city of Marawi during a five-month siege.
Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Joint Task Force Central and 6th Division, confirmed that another DI-MG member was killed during the clash.
"The fleeing enemies brought along with them the remains of the other slain comrade," Uy said in a statement.
Four marines were maimed and brought to a hospital for treatment, he said. They are believed to be in a stable condition, he added.
Police operatives and marines who conducted a clearing operation said they recovered assorted weapons left behind by the turbans, including high-powered rifles and a grenade launcher. They also seized "war materials" from a shallow bunker where the button men were believed to have holed up, the military said.
Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo drew a bead on his old enemy and squeezed the trigger...
military intelligence officials earlier told BenarNews that a few IS Lions of Islam who had beat feet from troops in Marawi in 2017 were in the process of rebuilding their ranks.
However,
denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
recent military victories in the field have disrupted their command structure, with the overall leader of Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan’s group under assault farther south on Jolo Island, officials added.
Sawadjaan himself may have been killed in a clash in 2020, but the military could not confirm his death because no body was found. Philippine officials accuse him of orchestrating a suicide kaboom of a Catholic church in Jolo in 2019 that left 23 dead, including an Indonesian couple who were the bombers.
The following year, his nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, criminal masterminded another bombing on Jolo that left 14 dead.