In May 2017, Islamist insurgents swarmed through the city of Marawi, taking the population of 200, 000 hostage and announcing it as a new ‘Capitol’ for Islamic State in South-East Asia.
This wildly ambitious, unprecedented move triggered a State of Emergency. As a result, from May to October 2017, fighting echelons of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFoP) deployed to Marawi in the Mindanao region of the Southern Philippines.
The Southern Philippines has proven a haven for Islamist terrorists for many years, however, anecdotal evidence suggests the region has also seen a recent increase in activity due to an influx of foreign terrorist fighters from the Middle East.
Prior to Marawi, the AFoP had limited experience in urban combat, with their training historically focusing on jungle operations to suppress various Islamist groups and the National People’s Army (NPA), a rebel communist group.
As a result, with almost no notice, the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women of the AFoP were required to adapt to this new environment extraordinarily quickly.
The lessons learned by the AFoP from grinding combat in a large, broken, crowded city are important. The Australian Army has sound doctrine and training packages for combat operations in the urban environment, but it must learn everything it can from the AFoP’s vicious Marawi experience to ensure it is best prepared to operate, fight and win in similar urban conflicts.lots of detail for military types about tactics etc.
Urban fighting is one of the most dangerous types for soldiers, since the defenders can hide and kill you. And the article notes that the AFP are famous for their jungle warfare skills, but had to switch to entirely different tactics here.
and this small snippet shows how the AFP was able to innovate:
Ground-Up Innovation Observation: In the Battle of Marawi, the Marines of the PMC had little to no access to smoke grenades. This posed a significant problem for mobility, primarily due to the sniper threat down firelanes (streets and alleys in particular). As a result, innovation was required to deny enemy observation and enable urban manoeuvre.
To conduct crossings, the marines of MBLT10 would carry a long piece of fabric, the height of a marine. They attached one end of the fabric to one side of the obstacle, and had a runner sprint across the fire lane, trailing the sheet behind him. He would then tie it off, taught, to the other side of the obstacle. This then enabled the entire platoon team or combat team to cross with relative impunity, especially as the resource-poor enemy wouldn’t risk wasting ammunition by ‘drake-shooting’ at the sheet.
It is nice that a "five eyes" state notices the bravery and expertise of the Philippine military here.
StrategyPage, while the fighting was going on, in July 2017 has an article about the background for the battle. Those behind the battle were hoping all the Muslims in the south would rise up and join them, but this did not happen... and this sent a message to the world wide terrorist types:
For years the Philippines had a reputation as a place Islamic terrorists could hide out. Everyone wants to make it clear to Islamic terrorists worldwide that the Philippines is not a place you come to find sanctuary, it where you come to die.
The US/EU MSM sort of ignored it, yet outsiders provided both money and personnel and equipment to these "insurgents"...and it notes they had prepared for it by building bunkers and tunnels.
In other words, this was not an internal political fight but an attempt of the international bad guys to take over the area, similar to what was done in parts of Syria and Iraq.
headsup VoxPopuli (NSFW).
related stories:
March 2018 story in the Rappler about AFP and Australian joint training operations.
It assisted the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the 2017 Marawi siege. It flew surveillance planes to locate enemies inside the battle area and helped give crash course on urban warfare to Filipino troops used to fighting in the jungles.Actually, most of the high tech help to the Philippines comes from the USA (the AFP don't like Yanks to do the fighting because they are proud, but US does train with them and assists the AFP).
However few Americans are aware of the fact that the Australians are doing a lot of this in nearby Indonesia (June 2018):
Since the 2002 Bali bomb attack that killed 88 Australians, the neighbor has been in close counterterrorism cooperation with Indonesia, helping the latter to fight the Jamaah Islamiyah terrorist group responsible for the bombing. Today, Indonesia faces new threats from the Islamic State, which is trying to have a foothold in Southeast Asia.
NYTimes Magazine from May 2019 about joint training exercizes between the US and the AFP.
You wouldn't know it from this article, but this is about the annual Balkitatan exercizes they hold every year here. And although it is the NYT, it is not really a good article, being militarily naive. For example:.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Pondanera, the Filipino officer helping to coordinate the exercise, said that he hoped the training would help fix some of the issues that plagued his elite forces during the siege of Marawi in 2017, like Manila’s overreliance on the smaller, better-trained special operations units in lieu of regular foot soldiers force and a difficulty radioing in accurate airstrikes.
The battle went on for months after Islamic State fighters took over much of the city, holding out against government forces and airstrikes before they were eventually routed.
yeah, urban warfare is a bitch. But the reason not mentioned: The alternative was to flatten the place and kill a lot of civilians. (many of whom were unwilling human hostages). So dangerous house to house combat was done instead.
And the NYTimes does mention that Chinese naked aggression against the Philippines is a threat, but not in detail. Never mind that the international courts said China's takeover of the islands nearby is illegal: The US MSM sees this merely as a difference of opinion. Presumably they will say the same if the Chinese invade Pagasa island or Luzon in the next few years, because... orange man bad and Bribery? what bribery?
As for Marawi: alas the city has not fully recovered from the battle.
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