Reuters

MARAWI CITY/CLARK, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippines on Monday announced the

end of five months of military operations in a southern city held by pro-Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) rebels, after a fierce and unfamiliar urban war
that has marked the countrys biggest security crisis in years.

Offensive combat operations were terminated after troops put a stop to the last
stand of rebel gunmen who clung on inside several buildings in the heart of Marawi,
and refused to surrender.

Artillery and automatic gunfire were still heard on Monday, and Reuters journalists
saw flames behind a mosque. The bodies of 40 fighters and two of their wives were
found there and in two buildings close by.

Ernesto Abella, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, said the Philippines had
prevailed against the most serious threat of violent extremism and radicalism in
the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the security forces had nipped the budding
infrastructure of extremist groups.

In crushing thus far the most serious attempt to export violent extremism and
radicalism in the Philippines and in the region, we have contributed to preventing
its spread in Asia, Lorenzana said in Clark at a meeting of regional defense
ministers.

The rebel occupation stunned a military inexperienced in urban combat and stoked
wider concerns that ISIL loyalists have gained influence among local Muslims and
have ambitions to use the island of Mindanao as a base for operations in Southeast
Asia.

Those fears are compounded by the organization of the militant alliance and its
ability to recruit young fighters, lure foreign radicals, stockpile huge amounts of
arms and endure 154 days of ground offensive and air strikes.

The authorities said 920 militants, 165 troops and police and at least 45 civilians
were killed in the conflict, which displaced more than 300,000 people.

The centre of the picturesque lakeside town is now in ruins due to heavy shelling
and aerial bombing.

The deputy task force commander in Marawi, Col. Romeo Brawner, said troops would
secure the city from militant stragglers who might still be alive.

If we find them and they will attack our soldiers or even the civilians, then we
will have to defend ourselves, he told reporters.

After months of slow progress, the military has made significant gains in retaking
Marawi in the week since Isnilon Hapilon, ISILs emir in Southeast Asia and
Omarkhayam Maute, a leader of the Maute militant group, were killed in a nighttime
operation. Another leader and possible bankroller of the operation, Malaysian
Mahmud Ahmad, was likely killed also, the military said