File photo: Rodrigo Duterte delivers his inaugural speech as the 16th President of the Philippines at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, the Philippines, June 30, 2016. (Xinhua/Presidential Palace of the Philippines)
MANILA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte voiced confidence on Friday that the government will eventually win the war against Islamic extremists that aim to establish an Islamic State caliphate in the Philippines.
In a speech before the troops in Zamboanga Sibugay in the southern Philippines, Duterte said the fight to crush the terror groups "will just take longer" because, unlike the militants, the government is concerned about the civilians who might be caught in the crossfire.
"We will have losses, but that's how life is governed in this universe," Duterte said.
The Duterte administration is now battling with dozens of militants aligned with the Islamic State in the country's only Islamic city with more than 200,000 people.
The military said at least 175 people, including 36 soldiers and policemen, have been killed in the ongoing siege that broke out last Tuesday in the southern city of Marawi. The running gun battle has also displaced thousands of residents.
An airstrike by the military on Wednesday killed 10 of its own soldiers and injured seven others, the military said.
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana predicted the fighting in Marawi to end this week.
But Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, the spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told a news conference at the Malacanang presidential palace that the Friday deadline to flush out militants in Marawi can not be achieved.
"Based on the report that we're getting I don't think we can meet the deadline today to completely -- I'd like to qualify that -- free Marawi of every single armed element in every street," Padilla said.
"The first military objective that we want to achieve to free Marawi of any armed elements that still exist today. So, until such time that every member of this armed group, this rebellion group that still want to make a stand inside Marawi exists, we cannot totally say we have cleared," Padilla said.
But Padilla said the troops "are working and doing their best to do and accomplish this mission immediately."
"The enemy continues to occupy commercial buildings as their defensible enemy lairs and this is the subject of military action being conducted from the past few days until now," Padilla said.
"Compounding the situation on the ground is the use of these forces, these armed elements use children and civilians as human shields," Padilla said.
Apart from that, Padilla said the militants have also been "turning into the madrasahs as staging areas and the mosque as sniper net thereby hoping to limit the movement of our forces and their capability to neutralize them."
"We continue to apply commensurate military power on these exiting threats and pockets of resistance and will continue to do so including the use of airstrike," Padilla said.
Indeed, Duterte told the troops that his administration is facing "pockets of rebellion everywhere," referring to the Muslim extremist groups and the communist rebels.
Duterte, who took office on June 30 last year, placed Mindanao and nearby island provinces in the southern Philippines under martial law last Tuesday after some 500 militants occupied and torched some infrastructures in Marawi. Duterte has warned of "invasion" of foreign jihadists eyeing to declare central Mindanao an IS province.
