MARAWI: Philippine air strikes aimed at Islamist militants who are holding hostages as human shields killed 11 soldiers, authorities said on Thursday, as they conceded hundreds of gunmen may have escaped a blockade.

The friendly fire deaths bring to 171 the number of people reported killed since militants waving the black flags of IS began rampaging through the Muslim city of Marawi last week.

Shortly after the violence erupted President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law across the southern region of Mindanao, home to 20 million people, to quell what he said was an IS bid to establish a base in the mainly Catholic Philippines.

But the government’s narrative of being in “full control” of Marawi took a hit on Thursday when defence chiefs said 11 soldiers were killed in a misguided bombing mission.

“It’s very painful. It’s very sad to be hitting our own troops,” Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters in Manila. “It’s sad but sometimes it happens in the fog of war.” Lorenzana also warned that many militants may have escaped, despite checkpoints throughout the city and surrounding it. “We have reports they are going to some of the towns around Marawi city,” Lorenzana said.

He said there were about 500 militants at the start of the unrest and only between 50 and 100 were believed to still be in Marawi. According to the military, 120 gunmen have been killed, meaning as many as 330 remain unaccounted for and could have slipped out of the city.

Adding to concerns about the rising threat of IS, Lorenzana said militants from Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Yemen, Malaysia and Indonesia were among the dead.

The military has relentlessly dropped bombs and fired rockets at the militants, who have been hiding in residential areas of Marawi where local authorities believe about 2,000 people are trapped.

The gunmen are also holding hostages, some of whom have been forced to speak on propaganda videos calling for troops to withdraw.

Local authorities have repeatedly warned that the trapped residents and hostages are in grave danger of being killed in the air assaults, and on Thursday repeated calls for them to end. “We continuously appeal to the chain of command... to refrain from using air strikes,” Zia Alonto Adiong, a local politician and spokesman for the provincial crisis management committee, told reporters in Marawi.

Lorenzana said air strikes may be curtailed because of the friendly fire incident, but Duterte signalled his intent to destroy all terrorist threats in Marawi and across Mindanao. “If it’s war, my orders are really are to wipe them out, everyone. When I say wipe them out better if you shoot him in the head, shoot him again in the heart,” Duterte said in a speech in Manila. However, he did not comment on the friendly fire deaths.

The militants have murdered 19 civilians, the military has said, while insisting none has died in any air assaults or the intense street-to-street battles. Thirty-two soldiers and police officers have been confirmed killed.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2017