these are the Philippines special forces
on the hunt for Isis moving to the
positions they need to be honest
challenged more accustomed to jungle
fighting than urban warfare battling in
these tight alleyways is proving harder
than expected
it's building some previously occupied
by the dervishes are they still here
also shooting at us where that snipers
yeah over there how close the door
meters these places are turning this
bombed out school into a sniper outpost
and preparing to attack you have one
position they're picking fire
can you see the enemy side this could be
somewhere
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they have to leave this area you just
shot fired so we expect counters counter
at us
with the enemy now firing back the unit
is taking cover in this classroom until
the escape route is clear actor school
just a minute so now on discoveries
mr. toughest what were you getting why
they let they're not running out the
bellow pursuing them streets
this is Murari for weeks the Philippines
military assisted by US Special Forces
has been pounding the city with
airstrikes and battling after help an
effort to root out this man is mallanna
happy lon
the leader of homegrown terror group Abu
Sayyaf they pledged allegiance to Isis
in 2014
Philippine authorities say happy lon
along with another isis-linked militant
group called mount a were planning to
establish Southeast Asia's first Islamic
state Caliphate here in malawi a
predominantly Muslim city and a country
that's more than 90 percent Christian
with an extensive network of hundreds of
fighters both local and foreign these
militants have mastered the terrain and
started away a seemingly endless supply
of weapons
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we're heading right into marami city
right now towards the heart of the
battle
you hear this continuing the Roger as
China
the only functioning building in this
part of town is the tactical command
post of one marine battalion the main
Forward Operating Base for the Armed
Forces major Rowan Remus is one of the
commanding officers who's been stationed
here since the fighting began fighting
can you just show us where the enemy is
the British before this when defended so
they in place car bombs roadblocks and
they employed sniper fires so this city
is essentially divided by this river so
the enemy is contained within this area
on the other side now the target of our
manoeuvring elements is to neutralize
those vantage positions through our
mortar
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just hours after we left this base these
Marines were ambushed during an
operation 13 were killed and at least 40
wounded in what was the bloodiest day
for the armed forces since the battle
began but it's not just militants inside
the city there are also hundreds of
civilians we managed to get the number
of one man who's trapped in the heart of
the siege do you have a plan to escape
are you safe right now
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for the people trapped inside Marui the
army is not moving fast enough and the
situation is becoming more desperate by
the day Colonel Jawahar era is the
spokesperson for Joint Task Force morale
despite the military's many setbacks
he's keen to show us that the Armed
Forces have retrieved around 120
high-powered weapons from the enemy I
mean obviously the insurgents were
pretty well-equipped how well equipped
your truth
well our armed forces are well educated
highly trained we are very capable to
address their will recently obviously
there's also a lot of criticisms towards
the Armed Forces suggesting that you're
not well equipped and that you're not
doing a great job quite frankly actually
about these militants well I think that
bester opinion okay how long do you
think it's gonna be well we don't want
to give timeline because we we need to
put premium on the lives of the people
that were trapped in that conflict area
right obviously time is running out for
them I mean stuff yes
now as the military ramps up pressure on
the remaining terrorist strongholds a
humanitarian crisis looms and concerns
that morale is only the beginning of an
increasingly violent Isis presence a
rapidly spreading throughout the region
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you