After losing the battle in Marawi City against the government troops, the Daesh-inspired Maute terrorists can now be considered a dead group, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Eduardo Año said.
The AFP chief believes that the possibility of the Maute group reviving itself as a fighting force will take a very long time.
“I think it will be a very long time. They will attempt to recover but they don’t have such capability like what they did in Marawi,” Año said.
Although the military is confident that it has defeated the Maute group, Año said that it should remain vigilant of lone wolf attacks.
“What we should be watchful for is the lone wolf attack, one or two persons who will show off and will detonate IEDs, that’s what we are guarding and hopefully it will never happen. But in the scale of what they did, they don’t have capability,” he said.
Meanwhile, military expert Clive Williams of the Australian Defence Force Academy said, “AFP operations will have driven ISIS-affiliated militant groups closer together and facilitated recruitment of new members.”
He added that surviving Maute fighters who might have returned to their Lanao del Sur localities might regroup and launch attacks in the future.
DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 10/ 25 /17