06 June 2016

News Story: Philippine troops seize Islamic militant camp

Philippine troops captured an Islamic militant training camp after a 10-day battle, officials said, as part of operations to clear insurgents from a remote jungle region.

The offensive against the Maute group, one of several Filipino Muslim armed organisations which have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, left four soldiers dead and 15 others wounded, a Philippine military commander told an AFP photographer at the scene.

Surrounded by swamps and a lowland tropical rainforest in the small, Muslim-populated farming town of Butig, more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Manila, the camp's structures were riddled with large bullet holes that soldiers said were caused by machine gun fire used to flush out the militants.

Soldiers said they killed dozens of militants, but there was no sign of dead bodies when the military allowed journalists into the area on Friday.

Read the full story at SpaceWar