Marawi: Gunfight erupts between govt troops and Islamic militants

ISIS-linked militants reportedly captured nine Christians, tied their hands together and shot them dead in a city in the Philippines.
The Maute group forced the civilians off their truck at a roadside checkpoint in Marawi City on Wednesday and murdered them after they were identified as Christian, local media reported.
Harrowing images show the group lying dead face-down in the grass, amid reports that villagers are afraid to move the bodies because terrorists are still in the area.
One policeman was similarly caught at a checkpoint set up by the militants and beheaded on Wednesday, President Rodrigo Duterte said.
It comes as 100 US-trained special forces aboard helicopters and armoured tanks battled to retake the besieged southern city from rampaging jihadis.
Soldiers were seen crouched behind armoured vehicles and walls around lunchtime on Thursday, firing volleys of gunshots towards elevated positions occupied by Maute rebels. Smoke could also be seen on the horizon.
Five soldiers and one policemen died in the clashes, while 13 gunmen were killed, according to the military.
'We're confronting maybe 30 to 40 remaining from the local terrorist group,' said Jo-Ar Herrera, a spokesman for the military's First Infantry Regiment.
'The military is conducting precise, surgical operations to flush them out ... The situation is very fluid and movements are dynamic because we wanted to out-step and out-manoeuvre them,' he said.
An initial rampage by the gunmen, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, through the mainly Muslim city of Marawi on Tuesday prompted President Duterte to impose martial law across the southern third of the Philippines.
Authorities said ending the crisis was proving extremely hard because the militants were holed up in residential buildings, had planted improvised bombs in the streets and had taken Catholic hostages.
'People are afraid. They do not want to open establishments. Offices are closed. We do not want people to be used as human shields,' Marawi mayor Majul Usman Gandamra said.
Two military helicopters flew above Marawi and armoured tanks churned through its streets as automatic rifle firing could be heard on Thursday, according to an AFP photographer in the city.
Marawi has about 200,000 residents but many of them have fled because of the fighting.
It is located in Lanao del Sur province, a stronghold of the Maute, a fierce, but little-known group that has been a tricky opponent for the military.
There are only between 50 and 100 gunmen, according to various military officials.
The militants are also holding between 12 and 15 Catholic hostages abducted from a church, according to the local bishop, Edwin Dela Pena.
Its activities are a source of concern for Mindanao native Duterte, who is familiar with separatist unrest but alarmed by the prospect of Islamic State's radical ideology spreading in the Philippines.
Hundreds of civilians, including children, were sheltering in a military camp in Marawi City on Thursday.
The Maute had taken more than a dozen Christians hostage and set free 107 prisoners from two jails since Tuesday.
Bishops and cardinals had pleaded with the Maute rebels, who they said were using Christians and a priest as human shields. The status of the captives was unknown.
The fighting erupted on Tuesday after security forces raided a house where they believed Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the infamous Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang and Philippine head of IS, was hiding.