Islamic State: Lakeside Town

islamic state: The military said that over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers, according to The Japan Times. In one house they found a vault loaded with neat stacks of money worth 52.2 million pesos 1.06 million and checks made out for cash worth 27 million pesos 550,000 . The recovery of those millions of cash indicates that they are running because the government troops are pressing in and focusing on destroying them, Marines Operations Officer Rowan Rimas told a news conference in the town as helicopters on machine-gun runs buzzed overhead. Fighters linked to Islamic State have been cornered in a built-up sliver of the southern lakeside town after two weeks of intense combat. Black smoke poured from an area near one of the town's mosques and the lake after bombings by OV-10 attack aircraft and artillery fire from the ground. Officials said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia but also from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya. The battle for Marawi has raised concerns that the ultra-radical Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.