Philippine troops engaged Islamic State-linked militants in pitched clashes on Thursday around the southern city of Marawi as the military deployed tanks to secure vital installations in a battle that has become a major test for President Rodrigo Duterte’s government.
With thousands fleeing the city and militants holding a Roman Catholic priest and others hostage, television footage showed black smoke billowing near Marawi’s City Hall as civilians who had held out in the besieged city watched from rooftops.
Explosions and bursts of gunfire could be heard at a distance, as the military asserted it was making progress clearing out “desperate” militants, forcing them to split into groups as they darted around the city trying to flee.
The fighting led Mr. Duterte to impose martial law over the southern Philippines this week. The military’s claims of success in battling the insurgents appeared to clash with images and reports from the city and surrounding areas that suggested a chaotic situation.
“What they are doing now are desperate moves,” Lt. Col. Joar Herrera, a military spokesman, said of the insurgents. “That is why they are engaging in terroristic activities to distract the focus of our military,” he added from an army camp outside the city.
He said troops had started to move around the besieged city of 200,000, extracting residents who were trapped inside their homes when members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group, backed by the radical Maute…