MANILA, Philippines – Security forces in the southern Philippines have killed two members of a local extremist organization sympathetic to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, a police report said Saturday, April 30.
Police commandoes raided a hideout of the Ansar Khalifa Philippines (AKP) group in the coastal town of Maasim on Thursday, killing two fighters, a police report said.
The commandoes recovered a cache of weapons including a sniper rifle, two carbines, rocket-propelled grenades, materials for making improvised explosive devices and a black flag of the ISIS group, which has captured large swathes of territory in the Middle East.
However the target of the raid, the group's leader, Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, escaped, the report added.
The AKP is one of several groups in the southern third of the Philippines that have pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Authorities have said these groups have no direct link to ISIS and are merely using its name to gain prestige locally and in the hope of gaining the international jihadi group's support and funding. – Rappler.com