"Thousands of residents flee Marawi as insurgents ..." Topic

… battle Philippines troops, raise Islamic State flag.

"The Philippines has mobilised attack helicopters and special forces to drive Islamic State-linked rebels out of a besieged southern city, with six soldiers killed in street combat amid heavy resistance.

Key points:
•Militants seized more than a dozen hostages and raised ISIS flag
•Duterte warned he would expand martial law to the rest of the country
•At least 21 people killed and thousands have evacuated the city

Ground troops hid behind walls and armoured vehicles and exchanged volleys of gunfire with Maute group fighters, shooting into elevated positions occupied by militants who have held Marawi City on Mindanao island for two days.

Helicopters circled the city, peppering Maute positions with machine gun fire to try to force them from a bridge vital to retaking Marawi, a mainly Muslim city of 200,000 where fighters had torched and seized a school, a jail and a cathedral, and took more than a dozen hostages…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Not a good situation any way that you look at this. Piles and piles of civilians caught in the crossfire. An unpopular leader figure that not many would want to be seen openly helping. A death cult that doesn't care about the means to their desired end. It is just a sad "perfect storm."

I'm always surprised by all the people that Western journalists and commentators like to describe as having been "caught" in the crossfire.

Today's "news" media likes to make it sound as if the local people never knew these things were building up, as if they were incapable of seeing the inevitable, and as if they never had any time to make a choice about leaving temporarily or staying in harms way.

But, then again, then there are occasionally still a few heartless writers who speak as though these poor people somehow deserved what the monsters in their midst are bringing down on them.

Dan

Sad that our Editors are from there and never comment the truth here…

Amicalement
Armand

Us embargo on weapons needed to fight terrorists????!!! That,s incredibly bad!!