ISIS beheads civilians and brutalizes women in Philippines
Islamists in the besieged city of Marawi in southern Philippines are forcing female hostages into sex slavery, Manila’s army was quoted as saying by the Independent. Male and female captives are also made to assist the militants in their fight against the Filipino military. “Worst thing is there are cases of female hostages forced to marry the terrorist group. They are being forced to be a sex slave, forced to destroy the dignity of these women,” Joint Task Force Marawi spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera told reporters.
Herrera cited examples of hostages who either escaped or were rescued and said their accounts show that women suffered brutal sexual assaults at the hands of the Maute captors. The captives were also tasked with plundering abandoned houses in the conflict-ridden area to fuel the Maute insurgency.
“The hostages were tasked to loot houses, establishments for ammunition, firearms, cash, and gold,” added Herrera.
Captive civilians, including young children, are forced onto the battlefield to loot supplies, carry the wounded to local mosques for medical care, and serve as human shields.
Yesterday it was reported by the Daily Caller that the military discovered five decapitated bodies of Filipino civilians butchered by ISIS Muslims among a group of 17 other bodies, according to Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Garcia of the Western Mindanao Command.
The military warned that atrocities are expected to continue as Filipino troops liberate Marawi, where the armed forces have been combating Muslims affiliated with Islamic separatist groups, specifically the ISIS-aligned Maute Group, for over a month. The Muslims, who carry the black ISIS standard into battle, have torched schools and churches, slaughtered civilians, and taken hostages.
The military has leveled whole sections of the city through airstrikes and bombing runs in an attempt to exterminate the terrorists attempting to build an Islamic caliphate in the southern Philippines, the Caller said. President Rodrigo Duterte, who has declared martial law in the south, says the Philippines is facing a “very dangerous situation” as young Muslims buy into the Islamic State’s “mass insanity,” Reuters reports.
“All they do is just to kill and destroy, and killing in a most brutal way,” the president said, adding, “They enjoy decapitating people.” Duterte asserted that the jihadis need to be taken out with ferocity.
Numerous atrocities have already been perpetrated by the militants in Marawi.
Early in the campaign, the extremists bound and executed civilians who failed to recite prayers from the Quran. As the battle raged on, the Islamic State released images of its fighters gunning down captured Christians in Marawi, which ISIS has claimed for the caliphate.
Over 70 soldiers and at least 40 civilians have lost their lives in the fight for Marawi, although the civilian death toll is potentially much higher. Around 300 militants have been killed, and roughly 200,000 people have been displaced.
Source: INN
