Philippine Asian News Today Vol 19 No 20 | Page 19

October 16 - 31, 2017
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
Pentagon chief praises Philippine
military for defeating Maute group
United States De-
fense Secretary Jim Mattis
has commended the Philip-
pine military for defeating the
Maute terrorist group that laid
siege in Marawi City.
Mattis told media that
the Philippine military has sent
a strong message to terrorists
by vanquishing the Islamic
State-inspired Maute group.
Mattis was interviewed
on his way to Clark, Pampan-
ga where he was scheduled
on October 24 to attend the
11th Association of South-
east Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Defense Ministers’ Meeting.
“It was a very tough
fight,” he told reporters. “I
think the Philippine military
sends a very strong message
to the terrorists.” region. They have done a very
good job of it,” he said. “The
US remains unambiguously
committed to supporting
Asean.”
After attending the
ASEAN meeting, Mattis will
head to Thailand to attend
the royal cremation rites for
the late King Bhumibol Adu-
lyadej.
ASEAN, Mattis said,
had been an important venue
in giving a voice to those who
want relations between states
to be based on respect, not
on predatory economics or
on the size of militaries.
“ASEAN nations have
demonstrated that they can
listen to one another, they
identify opportunities to in-
crease defense cooperation increase the scope and com-
plexity of our exercises, and
that we are working with like-
minded partners to help build
maritime security capacity in
the region,” White said in a
readout.
Mattis also encour-
aged increased operational
cooperation on maritime se-
curity challenges in the re-
gion, White said.
The Pentagon chief
has offered to continue co-
operation in maritime domain
awareness and information-
sharing among his Southeast
Asian counterparts.
“Meeting participants
also emphasized the need for
continued ASEAN unity to
address shared security chal-
lenges facing Southeast Asia
“One of the first things
I’m going to do when I get
there is commend the Phil-
ippine military for liberating
Marawi from the terrorists,”
he added.
The US Defense chief
was scheduled to meet his
counterparts from Japan,
Malaysia, Korea, India, Indo-
nesia, Malaysia and the Phil-
ippines.
“It will be an oppor-
tunity to recognize ASEAN
now for 50 years of promot-
ing peace and stability in the for their own security, and
seek shared solutions to
shared concerns,” he added.
At the October 24
meeting, Mattis and his
ASEAN counterparts dis-
cussed views on regional se-
curity during informal meet-
ings in Clark, Pampanga.
His
spokesperson
Dana White said that Mattis
relayed his appreciation for
the broad range of US-ASEAN
security cooperation.
“Secretary
Mattis
emphasized that we seek to and the broader Indo-Pa-
cific [region],” the Pentagon
spokesperson said.
Mattis and the ASEAN
defense ministers also dis-
cussed how to address the
threat posed by returning for-
eign fighters in the region.
The ministers agreed
that there is a need to in-
crease cooperation on coun-
ter-terrorism, particularly on
the threat posed by the Is-
lamic State of Iraq and Syria
(also called the Islamic State
or ISIS).
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