{"id":76605,"date":"2016-05-31T01:56:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T05:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=76605"},"modified":"2016-05-31T02:57:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T06:57:06","slug":"death-toll-terrorists-lanao-sur-rising-army-pushes-offensives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/05\/31\/death-toll-terrorists-lanao-sur-rising-army-pushes-offensives\/","title":{"rendered":"Death toll on terrorists in Lanao Sur rising; Army pushes offensives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Philippine<\/a>
Philippine Army troopers (Facebook photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

COTABATO CITY \u2013 The death toll in the military campaign against a terrorist group in Lanao del Sur rose to 37 as the Army pressed its offensive against the group which pledged allegiance to an international terrorist group.<\/p>\n

Colonel Roseller Murillo, commander of the 103rd Infantry Brigade, told DXMS-AM Radyo Bida the number of fatalities could even go higher as the military intensified its offensive in the mountains of Butig, Lanao del Sur.<\/p>\n

Murillo said the same group was also blamed for destroying vital transmission lines of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines in Lanao provinces.<\/p>\n

He said the Maute brothers, which has about 300 armed followers, first harassed government forces securing a village captured by soldiers following skirmishes last February.<\/p>\n

Fighting is still raging in Barangay Ragayan in Butig, with the military using its air assets to flush out the armed men deep into the forest.<\/p>\n

Murillo said the group was behind the beheading of two innocent civilians before the fighting erupted last week.<\/p>\n

He said the group was engaged in extortion and kidnapping of six persons working in a sawmill in Iligan City.<\/p>\n

Involved in the operation were elements of 5th Mechanized Infantry Battalion and 51st Infantry Battalion backed by two helicopter gunships and OV-10 bomber planes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot say when this operation will end but as long as there are terrorists in the villages of Butig, our operation will continue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Murillo said two soldiers were killed while nine others were injured in the ongoing firefight. Killed were Private First Class Danilo Allaga at Mark Ferdinand Ortaliza.<\/p>\n

The skirmishes forced about 2,000 individuals to flee from Barangay Ragayan and nearby villages.<\/p>\n

Maharlanny Alonto, Lanao del Sur provincial social welfare officer said the displaced families were from the villages of Coloyan, Samer, Bayabao, Poctan, Raya Timbab and Sandab.<\/p>\n

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) emergency unit had already sent relief aid to affected families.<\/p>\n

ARMM Vice Gov. Al-Rashid Alonto Lucman said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is also coming to provide assistance to the evacuees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COTABATO CITY \u2013 The death toll in the military campaign against a terrorist group in Lanao del Sur rose to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[10966,10965],"class_list":["post-76605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-lanao-del-sur","tag-lanao-sur-rising","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76605","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=76605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}