40 more hostages need to be rescued in Marawi, military says

October 6, 2017

About 40 hostages have remained in the hands of the Islamic State-inspired Maute terrorists in war-torn Marawi City, a military spokesman said on Friday.

In the "Mindanao Hour" briefing, Major General Restituto Padilla Jr. said this was the information gethered from the recently rescued 17 hostages from Marawi's main battlefield.

"And based on the debriefing that was conducted of all these individuals, we gathered based on their information passed on to us that there remains still about 40 hostages in the area," he said.

Padilla said are about 40 to 50 armed members of the terrorist group.

He said the information from the former hostages was a "good revelation.

"And this becomes a very important factor in the final planning stages that we are… in the final planning for the final push we’re doing for the remaining areas held by the terrorists," Padilla added.

He said because of the remaining hostages, the military needs to be cautious in its operation.

He said a soldier was killed by an sniper from the enemy side on Friday morning.

"And it’s a sad development because we were expecting that as we engaged more in these remaining areas and have better control of the peripheral areas in and out of this area, we’d be able to minimize that. But unfortunately, we still face a very tenacious enemy who is determined to defend their area," he said.

Like what new Army chief Major General Rolando Bautista mentioned, Padilla said the Armed Forces of the Philippines hopes to clear Marawi with terrorists before the country's hosting of the ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings in November.

"We expect that this (problem) won't last long and won't reach up to the time when we host the ASEAN (meetings)," he said.

He said the remaining areas that continue to be the "problematic area" is about seven to eight hectares in Marawi. Celerina Monte/DMS