Marawi, where the jailbreak to spring followers of the Maute terror group occurred.
Despite the Maute terror group's brash move to raid the provincial jail situated in Marawi City and spring 23 inmates, including its followers, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla asserted on Monday that the strength of the Muslim extremists have been degraded by the series of armed encounters with security forces.
"Yung latest assessment ay hindi ko hawak pero na-diminish na yung strength nila dahil nga sa nakaraang mga enkwentro sa kanila (While the latest assessment is not in my hand, I can say their strength has diminished under the pressure applied by the military and the police in past encounters)," Padilla said.
On Saturday, 50 heavily-armed men from the group, which claims support for the Islamic State (IS), stormed the provincial jail that caught the jail guards, the military and the police flat-footed.
According to provincial jail warden Acmad Tabao, most of the escapees were high-value target criminals.
Tabao said the terrorists came to the gate of the provincial ostensibly to deliver food for the detainees, but the jail guards reacted a tad too late as the armed visitors forced their way into the compound.
He said the raiders' objective was to spring their eight comrades arrested on August 22, and the rest of the escapees became their instant recruits.
The incident prompted the military to declare a red alert in support to the police operations against the escaped inmates.
But Padilla stressed that the job to recapture the escapees is the principal mission for the police to execute.
"It's law enforcement. But, of course, we work with the police in the pursuit and the recapture of all these prisoners, fugitives," he said.
In the middle of last year, the Maute terror group posted on YouTube their oath of allegiance to IS and started their terror operations, engaging in kidnappings and bombings and making the town of Butig in Lanao del Sur their "playground".
In February this year, the military and police started a campaign of attrition that lasted for weeks, and the terror group was flushed out of their camps and splintered into small groups.
http://interaksyon.com/article/131905/afp-despite-jail-raid-maute-terror-weakened-under-pressure
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