The Philippine army said on Saturday it had killed nine militants linked to the Islamic State jihadist group in a battle in the south of the country, including three suspected perpetrators of a deadly bombing at a trade fair in early December.
Four soldiers were injured, two seriously, in fighting in the mountains near Marawi on the island of Mindanao on Thursday, Brigadier General Yegor Rey Barroquillo, who commanded the unit, told AFP.
The nine militants killed were members of the Maute group, the local branch of ISIS, and “three were directly involved in the attack” that left four dead and 50 injured in Marawi on December 4, he added.
Police are still searching for three people suspected of being involved in the attack, including the suspected mastermind nicknamed “The Engineer,” the official said.
At the end of the operation, which took place in a remote hamlet of Piagapo where the militants had taken refuge, “six [combattants] We managed to escape and we believe that the engineer was one of them,” said Yegor Rey Barroquillo.
The Philippines signed a peace deal with the country's largest rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front, in 2014, ending their bloody armed insurgency.
But smaller groups of Muslim insurgents have opposed the peace deal, some of whom have pledged allegiance to IS, and attacks continue, including on buses, markets and Catholic places of worship.