Off the wire
• Bayern's Junghans emphasizes mental and physical aspects to training keepers  • China to improve mother, baby facilities  • Non-tariff measures clogging APEC economic engine: New Zealand report  • Irving, James lift Cavaliers over 76ers  • 1st LD: Bomb found near U.S. embassy in Manila  • China Hushen 300 index futures close higher Monday  • China treasury bond futures close higher Monday  • Chinese shares close mixed Monday  • Pacific communities mourn victims of New Zealand fishing tragedy  • European market offers new opportunities for China's online sellers  
You are here: 　 Home

19 terrorists killed in southern Philippine

Xinhua, November 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Skirmishes between the government troops and a local terror group in the southern Philippine province of Lanao del Sur continued with death toll of the militants reaching to 19, the military said on Monday.

Spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said 13 soldiers on the government side had been injured in the renewed clashes with the Maute Group, now occupying the town of Butig.

"The number of casualties may still go up at the end of the operation today," he said.

The military started pursuing the local bandits, numbering to about 300, after they occupied an abandoned municipal hall in Butig on Nov. 26.

Although the terror group brought the flag of Islamic State (IS) and pledged their allegiance to the terror group, Padilla said it did not mean that there was already IS presence in the country.

Maute group is an armed IS-influenced militant group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels and allegedly foreign fighters led by Abdullah Maute, the alleged founder of Dawlah Islamic or IS based in Lanao del Sur.

The Maute group was blamed for a series of bombings and robberies in the southern Philippines, including the Sept. 2 blast in Davao City that killed 15 and injured 70 others. Endit