Members of the Islamic State faction battling Filipino forces in the southern part of the country are claiming credit for an ongoing armed assault on a hotel resort in downtown Manila.
A representative of the Filipino faction of the terror group known as ISIS or ISIL claims the gunmen currently laying siege to the Resort World hotel and casino were “lone wolf soldiers of Khilafa,” SITE Intelligence Group reported.
Explosions and gunfire enveloped the resort complex, located near Ninoy Aqino International Airport in the Pasay district of metropolitan Manila early Friday morning, The Associated Press reported. Local reports claim several gunmen clad in black hoods and clothing were responsible for the ongoing gunfight inside the hotel complex.
Philippine police and assault units have been sent to the scene, as hotel management warned guests to shelter in place, while State Department officials warned U.S. citizens to avoid the area.
The hotel assault comes as Philippine military and police have been engaged in pitched, street-to-street fighting with Islamic State gunmen in and around the besieged city of Marawi in Mindanao’s Lanao del Sur province in the country’s south over the last several days.
Manila’s counterattack came a week after Islamic State fighters raised the group’s black banners over Marawi, prompting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law in the Mindanao region.
Roughly 100 U.S. Marines and special operations forces based in Zamboanga, which lies over 250 miles east of Marawi, have been intelligence and logistics support to Philippine forces in Mindanao.
The small team of American troops had been part of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, one of the earliest U.S. counterterrorism operations launched in the wake of 9/11. As the height of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, over 400 task force members provided combat support to Manila’s efforts to quash groups like the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf.
The group’s leader, Isnilon Hapilon, declared allegiance with Islamic State in 2014 and was subsequently named the group’s emir in Southeast Asia. The assault on Mawari was triggered by a failed raid by Philippine military and police on Mr. Hapilon’s base near the city, local reports say.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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