#Marawi

In what some analysts are claiming as some of the most vicious urban combat in Southeast Asia since the end of hostilities in Vietnam, the Marawi campaign earned an infamous spot in Military and Filipino history. We covered the battle whenever major news breaks came through in regards to small arms development, such as the terrorist armament or even countries donating small arms to the Philippines  on TFB. Recently the Filipino Special Operations Command released a video highlighting the fighting in the campaign through helmet cameras worn by Filipino soldiers and overhead drones. The video is shared here, and I highly encourage readers to watch through it. Similar to the developments in Syria, I think it is important to take in some of the lessons of the fighting for future conflicts. Things like drones, anti-material rifles, suicide bombers, and IEDs will become much more prevalent in upcoming conflicts.

We previously discussed the small arms capabilities of the so-called Islamic State-affiliated Maute group, we will proceed to cover the opposing Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that have been successful in crushing the rebel uprising. Despite this success, there is still a rocky road ahead of the security forces when it comes to their task at hand. A number of these high-quality photographs are from a photo essay by David Sim on the International Business Times.

The Government of the Phillippines is engaged in what is increasingly becoming a much harder fight than anticipated in the city of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao. Numerous security forces are involved in the fight to include Philippine Infantry units, Marines, SF, and most recently U.S. Special Operations are being thrown into the fray. In addition to the local so-called Islamic State group (Maute Group) lead by two brothers, we have had much media attention focused on this entire dynamic and we haven’t taken a look at the Marawi fight yet on TFB. The International Business Times has an excellent slide show where their reporters took a number of high-resolution photographs of the fighting on the Government forces side. We’ll be examining the small arms capabilities of the government forces in a forthcoming post.