{"id":125726,"date":"2017-10-22T23:37:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T03:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=125726"},"modified":"2017-10-22T23:37:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T03:37:30","slug":"mattis-praises-philippines-progress-against-militants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/22\/mattis-praises-philippines-progress-against-militants\/","title":{"rendered":"Mattis praises Philippines progress against militants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In brief remarks to reporters flying with him from Washington, Mattis praised the Philippine military for its counterterrorism efforts in Marawi, which had been controlled by Islamic militants. (Photo:<\/a> Mattis News\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CLARK,\u00a0Philippines\u2014 U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, paving the way for a visit next month by President Donald Trump, congratulated the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0army for its successes against militants in the southern city of Marawi.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0are decades-old treaty allies, but the relationship has been rocky in recent years. One point of contention under President Barack Obama was government-sanctioned killings as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drug suspects. President Donald Trump has praised Duterte’s attacks on drug suspects.<\/p>\n

Mattis arrived early Monday at an airbase that once of the home of U.S. air forces known as Clark field. He will be attending meetings with counterparts from 10\u00a0Southeast Asian\u00a0nations. A key topic is expected to be North Korea and its accelerating drive to develop a full arsenal of nuclear weapons, including missiles capable of strike the United States.<\/p>\n

Mattis was scheduled later Monday to hold trilateral talks with his counterparts from South Korea and Japan as part of a Trump administration effort to present a united front on North Korea and to prepare for the possibility of conflict.<\/p>\n

In brief remarks to reporters flying with him from Washington, Mattis praised the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0military for its counterterrorism efforts in Marawi, which had been controlled by Islamic militants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0Philippine\u00a0military has sent a very necessary message to the terrorists,\u201d Mattis said.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philippine\u00a0military said on Sunday that its troops were battling a final group of about 30 pro-Islamic State group militants as a nearly five-month siege neared its end in Marawai.<\/p>\n

A gradual withdrawal of forces was underway with the easing of the fighting, which has left at least 1,131 people dead, including 919 militants and 165 soldiers and policemen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLARK,\u00a0Philippines\u2014 U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, paving the way for a visit next month by President Donald Trump, congratulated the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0army …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":125729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[29062,14087,29063,29061],"class_list":["post-125726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-mattis-praises-philippines-progress-against-militants","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-successes-against-militants","tag-u-s-defence-secretary-jim-mattis","mauthors-robert-burns","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}