Recovered from the abandoned stronghold within ground zero of the war zone were an assortment of high powered firearms, ammunition and related fighting equipment, including a caliber .50 machine gun, communications items and even a drone suspected to have been used for surveillance purposes.
ISLAMIC CITY OF MARAWI – Government security forces have retaken Dansalan College here, which for a time served as one of the strongholds of the terrorist Maute Group in the battle for Marawi that has been raging for six weeks now.
Recovered from the abandoned stronghold within ground zero of the war zone were an assortment of high powered firearms and related fighting equipment, including a caliber .50 machine gun, communications items and even a drone suspected to have been used for surveillance purposes.
The government forces also retrieved the remains of a suspected foreigner who had apparently died fighting on the side of the terrorists.
The retaking of Dansalan College was preceded by fierce exchanges of firepower between both sides, as well as unremitting aerial bombardment.
The college grounds were believed held under the leadership of Abdullah Maute, who made the campus a veritable nest for snipers and machine gun emplacements.
Dansalan College was where the Maute brothers went for schooling.
“This is one of the establishments taken and partially burned by the Maute and their allies, the Abu Sayyaf Group,” said Lt. Col. Jo-Ar Herrera, Spokesman of the Joint Task Force Marawi. “This is the school where the Maute brothers had their earlier education. The acts of destruction landed them in the most notorious and abhorred alumni list.
“The school is host to some of the high-rise structures that served as strategic machine gun’s nests and snipers’ vantage positions of the terrorist elements. Our soldiers are gradually taking over the terrorist-held structures as their positions fall one by one to government forces.”
The government tally lists at least 11 suspected foreigners among the fatalities from the Maute side.
It is estimated that there are some 300 non-combatants, civilians, still trapped inside ground zero, most of them believed being held hostage by the terrorists using them as for labor and as sex slaves and human shields.
“It will just be a matter of time, before our soldiers fully liberate Marawi from the criminal gangs who brought mayhem to the city,” said Herrera.
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