[DAWN] Thirteen Philippine marines were killed in fierce fighting with Lions of Islam who have laid siege to a southern city for nearly a month in the biggest single-day loss for government forces, the military said Saturday.A US Navy aircraft provided surveillance for the local troops as the battle raged in Marawi on Friday, confirming the involvement of the US military in helping quell the urban insurrection at the request of the Philippine government, Philippine military officials said.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named journalist and photographer saw a US Navy P3 Orion plane hovering in cloudy skies above Marawi on Friday. The aircraft flew above rocket-firing Philippine helicopters that struck Lion of Islam positions, causing plumes of smoke to billow skyward.
"We don't have adequate surveillance equipment, so we asked the US military for assistance. It's noncombat assistance," military front man Brig Gen Restituto Padilla said by phone, citing a Philippine government policy that bars foreign troops from local combat.
The US Embassy in Manila said without elaborating that US special operations forces were providing help to Filipino troops battling the Maute and Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
Lions of Islam in Marawi.