News5 has obtained a copy of a video clip showing a passageway opened up between buildings in Barangay Marinuot that could have been used by alleged reinforcements of the terrorist Maute Group to infiltrate into the battle zone at the Islamic City of Marawi.
These improvised openings are useful also for the terrorists battling government security forces to scoot from one enclave to the next in the running battles that have been going on for more than two months now.
A source has indicated that, just on Tuesday this week, as many as 50 jihadist fighters were able to infiltrate through the city’s perimeter cordon to reinforce their fellow extremist fighters.
The supposed objective, they elaborated, could be to retake the campus of the Mindanao State University (MSU).
The information is now the subject of military intelligence verification.
While the identity of these alleged reinforcements remains vague, News5 has been told time and again that some relatives of the holdout Maute fighters are itching to join the fray.
Zia Alonto Adiong, Spokesman of the Provincial Crisis Management Committee of Lanao del Sur, appealed to the community not to allow MSU to be retaken, as the university is the symbol of the youth and future of Marawi: “It will be like consigning the future of our children to oblivion. If that future is obliterated, it’s like obliterating our home.”
Click and watch this clip from Kaye Imson’s video report:
