Alwaght-The ISIS Takfiri terrorist group sent at least $1.5 million to finance the recently ended siege of the southern Philippine city of Marawi, the country's military chief has revealed.
Gen. Eduardo Ano has said the ISIS terrorists assaulted the southern city using the 2014 ISIS seizure of the Iraqi city of Mosul as a blueprint.
The Philippine military chief said the battle defeats of the brutal group in Syria and Iraq, and now the ISIS-aligned gunmen in Marawi, however, show a major vulnerability of the extremists.
The counterterrorism victories have given governments confidence that ISIS — which shocked the world with its rise a few years ago — could be stopped and defeated, said Ano, who oversaw the military campaign that ended the five-month siege in Marawi this week.
“With what happened in Mosul, the Philippines and Raqqa, the different countries are now confident that if ever an ISIS siege would erupt . . . they now have the recipe or the formula to fight it,” Ano said, adding that the Philippine military is ready to share its battle experiences in Marawi.
The siege, which was launched on May 23, left more than 1,100 combatants and civilians dead, including more than 900 militants, and displaced some 400,000 residents.
The leaders of the bloody insurrection, who came from different ethnic backgrounds, were linked by their desire to be recognized by ISIS as its Southeast Asian branch and obtain funding from the Middle East-based group.
Russia has provided Philippine with weapons to combat ISIS following an agreement between the country's president Duterte and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in May this year.
Prior to his Monday’s arrival in Russia, Duterte said Manila signaled his interest in buying small arms, helicopters and jets from Moscow to fight its drug war and terrorist insurgency.
While Washington used to supply weapons to Manila, Duterte previously said that procuring arms from the United States might be challenging because the US was heavily criticizing the alleged human rights abuses in his country.
