CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines (AP) — Muslim extremists supporting the Islamic State group have freed eight fellow militants in a daring attack that also allowed 15 other inmates to escape from a provincial jail in the southern Philippines.

Police say about 20 heavily-armed fighters of the Maute militant group stormed the Lanao del Sur provincial jail in Marawi city before nightfall Saturday, disarmed the guards and rescued their eight comrades, including three women. The attackers also seized two rifles from guards.

Police said Sunday the eight militants were arrested by army troops and police when they were caught with a homemade mortar shell in a van in Lanao del Sur's Lumbayanague town.

The Maute group is a new band of armed Muslim radicals, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. </s> Islamic extremists supporting Isis freed eight fellow militants in an attack that also allowed 15 other inmates to escape from a provincial jail in the southern Philippines, police said on Sunday.

About 20 heavily-armed fighters of the Maute militant group stormed the Lanao del Sur provincial jail in Marawi city before nightfall on Saturday, disarmed the guards and rescued their eight comrades. The attackers also seized two rifles from guards, police said.

The eight who escaped were arrested a week ago when they were caught with a homemade bomb in van at a security checkpoint.

The others who escaped, apparently to divert the attention of authorities, were facing murder and illegal drugs charges.

The Maute group is a new band of armed Muslim radicals, who have pledged allegiance to Isis and use black flags with logos of the Middle East-based extremists.

Based in Lanao del Sur’s Butig town, the militants have attacked army troops and beheaded a soldier and two kidnapped workers earlier this year. Before being killed, the two workers were made to wear orange shirts similar to beheading victims of Isis.

A number of Muslim armed groups in the country’s south, including some commanders of the violent Abu Sayyaf, have pledged loyalty to Isis. The military has tried to play down their action, saying there has been no evidence of an active collaboration between the foreign extremists and Filipino militants who are aiming to prop up their image and secure badly-needed funds amid years of battle setbacks.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who was sworn in in June, has pursued peace deals with two large Muslim rebel groups but has ordered troops to destroy the Abu Sayyaf and other militants. </s> The jailbreak is just the latest mass escape from poorly secured Philippine jails with the incidents often involving Muslim extremists.

Muslim extremists carrying Islamic State group insignia have staged a daring jailbreak in the southern Philippines, freeing 28 detainees in the latest in a series of mass escapes, officials said Sunday.

About 50 heavily armed members of the Maute group raided the local jail in the southern city of Marawi on Saturday, freeing eight comrades who had been arrested barely a week ago, police said.

Twenty other detainees, held for other offences, also escaped in the raid, provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Agustine Tello said.

The freed members of the Maute group were arrested on August 22 after soldiers manning an army checkpoint found improvised bombs and pistols in the van they were driving.

The Maute group is one of several Muslim gangs in the southern region of Mindanao, the ancestral homeland of the Muslim minority in the largely Catholic Philippines.

The group has carried out kidnappings and bombings and is believed to have led an attack on an army outpost in the Mindanao town of Butig in February.

The fighting there lasted a week, leaving numerous fatalities and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes as helicopter gunships fought off the attackers.

The gunmen attacking the jail Saturday were seen carrying black flags of the Islamic State group, and bandanas bearing the jihadists' insignia were later found in their base, the military said.

Authorities said they were investigating why the jail's guards did not resist the raid or why security had not been increased after high-risk suspects were brought in.

The jailbreak is just the latest mass escape from poorly secured Philippine jails, with the incidents often involving Muslim extremists.

In 2009, more than 100 armed men raided a jail in the strife-torn southern island of Basilan, freeing 31 prisoners, including several Muslim guerrillas. © AFP, 2016 </s> Soldiers inspecting a vehicle during operations to find the 10 escaped prisoners.

MANILA Three inmates were shot dead and another wounded after escaping from jail on a southern Philippine island that is the stronghold of Islamist militants.

The casualties were among 14 prisoners who escaped from a police station jail in war-torn Jolo, the authorities said.

Jolo is a base of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group and some of the inmates were linked to them, according to provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Mario Buyuccan.

"They cut the bars of the jail and jumped from the second floor to the roof of the municipal hall building next door. Our troops responded, and the inmates were killed and wounded," he told AFP.

The injured inmate was recaptured while soldiers and policemen were chasing the remaining 10 escapees.

The jail had a total of 32 inmates mostly facing drug charges, Senior Supt Buyuccan added.

The Philippines frequently has mass escapes from prisons which are usually overcrowded, poorly maintained and inadequately guarded.

In the country's biggest jailbreak, more than 150 inmates escaped a prison in the southern Philippines in January after about a hundred gunmen stormed the facility.

In May, Islamist militants waving black flags of ISIS went on a rampage in the southern city of Marawi and freed 100 inmates from two jails there. </s> The attack by Islamic State group-affiliated militants on a Philippine city has galvanized its Southeast Asian supporters and spells trouble for the region, a top terrorism researcher said Friday as the occupation of Marawi nears two months despite a sustained military offensive.

In a new report, Sidney Jones, an expert on militant networks in Southeast Asia at the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said there now may be a higher risk of attacks in other Philippine cities and cooperation between militants across regional borders could expand. Militants in Indonesia and Malaysia will want to redouble efforts to attack police and may also lift their sights to targeting foreigners, she said.

“The initial photographs from Marawi released over social media as the ISIS assault began — smiling fighters hold guns aloft on trucks — seemed to have the same impact as the iconic ISIS victory photos from Mosul in 2014,” Jones said, using another acronym for IS and referring to its past occupation of Iraq’s second-largest city. “They generated a shared sense of triumph and strengthened the desire of ISIS supporters in the region to join the battle.”

Waving IS-style black flags, the heavily armed fighters stormed into Marawi, a center of Islamic faith in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, on May 23, occupying buildings, houses and mosques and taking hostages. Foreign fighters, including 20 Indonesians, joined the insurrection, which officials and researchers say received funding locally and from IS in Syria that was coordinated by a Malaysian known as Mahmud bin Ahmad.

At least 578 people, including at least 428 militants, 105 soldiers and policemen, as well as 45 civilians have been killed in the worst urban uprising by Muslim militants in the volatile southern Philippines in decades. Nearly half a million residents have been displaced in Marawi and outlying towns by the fighting.

On Saturday, the Philippine Congress overwhelmingly approved the President Rodrigo Duterte’s appeal for martial law in the south to be extended to the end of the year to help troops quell the two-month siege by the militants and stamp out similar extremist plots in the volatile region.

House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez announced that senators and House members voted 261-18 in favor of granting Duterte’s request in a special joint session. The 60-day martial law had been scheduled to expire late Saturday.

The military chief of staff, Gen. Eduardo Ano, warned during the session that aside from the uprising in Marawi, extremist groups have plotted similar insurrections in other southern cities and that martial law has helped troops stop attacks, including bombings, elsewhere.

“There was an order for them to do their own version of Marawi in other areas, but we were able to stop this because of martial law,” Ano told the legislators.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana played down concerns of military abuses, saying no major human rights violations have been reported since Duterte declared martial law to deal with the Marawi violence, the worst crisis in his yearlong presidency.

Some opponents argued that government forces could deal with the attack in lakeside Marawi, a center of Islamic faith in the southern third of the largely Roman Catholic nation, without resorting to martial law. Others worried that the extension was too long and that the rest of the country may eventually be placed under martial rule.

Left-wing activists opposed to Duterte’s declaration rallied outside Congress. Some unfurled protest posters in the plenary hall but were forced out by security officers.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros recalled how civil liberties were curtailed and Congress was padlocked when dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in the Philippines in 1972. Marcos was ousted in a “people power” revolt in 1986.

Duterte said Friday the Marawi crisis should be over soon, but that he has asked troops not to launch an all-out assault that might prompt the militants to kill their hostages.

“We’ll just have to wait it out. I told them, ‘do not attack,’ ” Duterte said in a speech at a business conference in the southern Philippine city of Davao. “If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year.”

Military officials have said 300 civilians may be held by the militants or trapped in their homes by the fighting.

Jones said Indonesians and Malaysians who joined the fight in Marawi could return to their countries, and with their high prestige provide new leadership, uniting factionalized pro-IS cells.

But a Malawi-style attack in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is unlikely because unlike the southern Philippines, it does not have the multiple insurgencies that extremists can draw on for fighters and weapons, she said.

The report was based on research in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, interviews with Indonesian militants, credible news reports including from The Associated Press and monitoring of pro-IS groups on the Telegram instant messaging app.

When the militants holding out in Marawi are defeated, the rebuilding of the city, which has pounded by airstrikes, will be crucial for the Philippines and Southeast Asia, according to Jones.

Officials need to give those displaced a voice in the rebuilding of Marawi and prevent extremist teachings from finding fertile ground, she said.

“Recruiters (for militant groups) were able to build on the narrative of state brutality long before the battle for Marawi began, but the military’s reliance on airstrikes … enabled the fighters to blame the government for the city’s destruction,” she said. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Soldiers arrested eight members of the Maute group last week

Eight suspected militants linked to so-called Islamic State (IS) have been freed from jail in the Philippines in an apparently "staged raid".

Police said at least 20 fighters from the Maute group had turned up at the Lanao del Sur jail in the southern city of Marawi, but no shots had been fired.

A military source told the BBC they believed the men had been allowed to escape.

The militants were held last week after being caught with homemade mortars.

At least 15 other inmates - who faced murder and drugs charges - also walked free, but it is not clear whether this was agreed.

The Maute group has carried out several bombings and kidnappings in the southern Mindanao region.

The Philippines has faced Muslim separatist movements for decades in Mindanao, which has a significant Muslim population - the Philippines is mainly Catholic.

The Maute group carries the black flag and insignia of IS, and has attacked army troops, beheaded a soldier and beheaded two local workers earlier this year.

The militants kidnapped the two workers and made them wear orange shirts similar to those worn by IS beheading victims before they were killed.

Several armed groups in the Philippines have pledged allegiance to IS, although the country's military says there is no evidence of active co-operation with foreign militants. </s> Nearly 300 pro-Islamic State militants stormed a school in Philippines early on Wednesday and held students hostage, Reuters reported. About 300 armed men, among them members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, stormed a school in Pigcawayan town in North Cotabato province on Mindanao island and held students captive, police said.

Chief Inspector Realan Mamon, the police chief at Pigcawayan, said BIFF members engaged in a gunbattle with the Philippines military. “We can confirm that they occupied a school and there were civilians trapped,” Mamon said. “We are in the process of determining how many were trapped and their identities.”

But Philippines military subsequently said the militants retreated after the gunbattle, and there were no casualties.

BIFF militants, along with fighters from other groups who have pledged allegiance to Islamic State, have been holed up and fighting the Philippines military in Marawi city, just 190 kilometres north of Pigcawayan, since May 23. Philippine aircraft and troops had launched a fresh push against the militants in Marawi City on Tuesday, with an aim to flush them out of the area by Eid on June 26. </s> Muslim extremists supporting the Islamic State group have freed eight fellow militants in a daring attack that also allowed 15 other inmates to escape from a provincial jail in the southern Philippines.

About 20 heavily armed fighters of the Maute militant group stormed the Lanao del Sur provincial jail in Marawi city before nightfall, disarmed the guards and rescued their eight comrades. The attackers also seized two rifles from guards, police said.

The eight who escaped were arrested a week ago when they were caught with a homemade bomb in van at a security checkpoint. The others who escaped, apparently to divert the attention of authorities, were facing murder and illegal drugs charges.

The Maute group is a new band of armed Muslim radicals who have pledged allegiance to Islamic State and use black flags with logos of the Middle East-based extremists.

Based in Lanao del Sur’s Butig town, the militants have attacked army troops and beheaded a soldier and two kidnapped workers earlier this year. Before being killed, the two workers were made to wear orange shirts similar to beheading victims of the Islamic State group.

A number of Muslim armed groups in the southern Philippines, including some commanders of the violent Abu Sayyaf, have pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group. The military has tried to play down their actions, saying there has been no evidence of an active collaboration between the foreign extremists and Filipino militants who are aiming to prop up their image and secure badly needed funds amid years of battle setbacks.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in June, has pursued peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups, but has ordered troops to destroy the Abu Sayyaf and other hard-line militants.

Troops have continued on-and-off offensives against the Maute militants in Butig in Lanao del Sur, a predominantly Muslim province, about 520 miles south of Manila.

A major offensive against the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu province’s mountainous Patikul town, also in the south, has killed at least 19 militants, including an influential commander, Mohammad Said, who used the nom de guerre Amah Maas, his two sons, and another ranking fighter, Latip Sapie, military officials said.

Said, who had severed arms and was among the most senior Abu Sayyaf commanders, had been implicated in the kidnappings of several Filipinos and foreigners. </s> Philippine authorities said Sunday they were trying to negotiate a ceasefire in a war-torn southern city to rescue up to 2,000 civilians trapped in areas held by Islamist militants for nearly two weeks.

Government forces have bombarded Marawi with air strikes and waged fierce street-to-street battles with hundreds of gunmen since they began a rampage through residential areas waving the black flags of the Islamic State (IS).

Authorities said Sunday they had finally been able to negotiate a ceasefire with the militants to allow those trapped to be released, although continued fighting throughout the morning meant it was not put into place as hoped.

"There are 2,000 people who need immediate help (after) 13 days without food," Zia Alonto Adiong, spokesman for the provincial crisis management committee, told AFP.

"We do not know if the ceasefire has been breached," he said, adding that a sudden surge in fighting had hampered the rescue efforts.

Scores of people made a daring dash for safety on Saturday, including one of Marawi's most respected politicians who had hidden 71 Christians in his home and led 144 people through downtown streets strewn with rotting corpses.

The militants behind the violence in Marawi mostly belong to a local group called the Maute and the infamous Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang which had pledged allegiance to IS and rejected official peace talks.

Sunday's ceasefire was initially reached following a meeting last week between President Rodrigo Duterte and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the nation's biggest rebel organisation which offered to broker a halt in hostilities using contacts with the fighters in Marawi, Adiong told DZBB radio.

Unarmed MILF rebels had a four-hour window until noon (0400 GMT) to take civilians to safety, government rescue coordinator Naguib Sinarimbo said.

But an AFP reporter said there was a sudden burst of gunfire and an explosion as rescue teams were entering the city.

A Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines has killed more than 120,000 people since the 1970s.

The MILF has signed accords with the government aimed at forging lasting peace, giving up their separatist ambitions in return for autonomy.

But small hardline groups, including the Maute and Abu Sayyaf, have refused to negotiate and sought to united behind IS.

The clashes in Marawi erupted when security forces raided a house to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as IS's leader in the Philippines. He is on the US government's list of most-wanted terrorists.

Authorities said they were taken by surprise when many gunmen emerged to protect Hapilon and then went on a rampage through Marawi, which has a population of 200,000.

Shortly after the violence erupted Duterte imposed martial law across the southern region of Mindanao, home to 20 million people, to quell what he said was an IS bid to establish a base in the mainly Catholic Philippines.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants break free supporters from a Marawi jail in the Philippines.