Indonesians, Malaysians and Singaporeans are fighting alongside Abu Sayyaf and Maute group members in Marawi, the Philippine solicitor general said.
MANILA — As fighting continued Friday between government forces and Islamic State-linked insurgents in the southern Philippines, the government said that foreign militants were among those taking part in the clashes.
Jose Calida, the government’s solicitor general, said Indonesians, Malaysians and Singaporeans were fighting alongside local Abu Sayyaf and Maute group members in Marawi, a Muslim-majority city of about 200,000 people. The city, on the island of Mindanao, has been largely deserted since residents fled clashes this week.
“What’s happening in Mindanao is no longer a rebellion of Filipino citizens, ” Mr. Calida said.
The intense fighting led President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law in the southern Philippines this week, and he warned that he could impose it on the whole country if the Islamist threat spread.
While Abu Sayyaf, the main group fighting the government, has pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State, it predates that group, and it has been behind a series of attacks across Mindanao in recent years.
The fighting broke out when government forces moved to capture the leader of an Abu Sayyaf faction, Isnilon Hapilon, after he had been spotted in Marawi this week. But government forces were surprised by the heavy resistance they encountered.
The rebels went on a rampage, burning several buildings and taking hostage a Roman Catholic priest and several parishioners. There was no word on their fate Friday, three days after they were kidnapped.
The fighting has resulted in the deaths of 31 militants, 11 soldiers and two police officers as of Thursday night. The government said at least six of the slain fighters were believed to be foreigners.
Reports of foreign militants fighting in Mindanao, however, are not new. Foreign jihadists were spotted in rebel camps in the south as long as two decades ago. Muslim rebel fighters, too, have been known to cross over to nearby Malaysia and Indonesia to train there.
Aid agencies began arriving in Marawi on Friday in an attempt to help people left behind in the city.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said they were assisting the local government and troops in evacuating residents and providing them with essentials like water.
But the British aid agency Oxfam said “very little is known of the plight of civilians” who chose to wait it out in Marawi, where sporadic clashes were continuing.
“Aside from sketchy reporting about men, women and children exposed to a higher risk of being killed and injured, there is no actual account of those individuals and families affected and information as to where they will go to for safe evacuation, ” it said.
