Fighters locked in street-to-street battles with security forces in a southern Philippine city on Mindanao island have killed 19 civilians, the military said on Sunday, bringing the official death toll from nearly a week of fighting to at least 85. The violence prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law on Tuesday across the southern third of the Philippines to quell what he said was a fast-growing threat of "militants" linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group. But the recent violence has raised fears that extremism is growing as smaller bandit groups like the Abu Sayyaf and the Maute group unify and align themselves with IS. Authorities said the fighters had killed 19 civilians in Marawi, a mostly Muslim-populated city of 200,000 people. Padilla said the bodies of four men, three women and a child were found near a road close to the Mindanao State University (MSU) campus in Marawi. The gunmen planted black ISIL flags, took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage from a church, and set fire to buildings. Thousands of the city's residents have fled because of the fighting, which has seen the military heavily bomb residential areas where the fighters were believed to be hiding. The military announced on Saturday, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, that it would intensify the bombing campaign.
The Philippine military announces that it has discovered the bodies of 16 people, believed to have been killed by the ISIL affiliated Abu Sayyaf. Authorities say that the death toll after six days of fighting is 95, including 19 civilians.