THE city of Marawi, President Rodrigo Duterte declared on October17th, has been liberated from the jihadists who had seized control of it. Mr Duterte was speaking in Marawi a day after Philippine forces had killed Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of Abu Sayyaf, a local militant group, who had declared allegiance to Islamic State (is). That, in effect, puts an end to the attempt by is to establish a South-East Asian outpost of its collapsing caliphate. But it took five months of fighting for the army to regain control of the city. And there is a risk that disaffected Filipino Muslims will redirect their aggression into terrorism and extortion, which have racked the southern island of Mindanao, in particular, for decades.
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