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ISIS-Affiliated Group Destroys Church in Marawi, Philippines

   DailyWire.com

A new video has been posted online by the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency showing the Maute Group, an ISIS affiliate, destroying the inside of a church in Marawi, Philippines:

The militants can be seen tearing up a photograph of Pope Francis, and knocking over and stomping on a large wooden crucifix, among other acts of desecration.

The destruction of property and monuments is nothing new for the Islamic State. When ISIS took the city of Palmyra in Syria, they tore down the Temple of Bel, the Arc du Triomohe, and laid waste to numerous cultural artifacts in the Palmyra museum.

Newsweek writes that this is just a part of what the Maute Group has been doing in Marawi:

The siege of Marawi began on May 23, when the Maute Group, who have pledged allegiance to ISIS, stormed the city, released prisoners from the jail, and took hostages. The video is the second one about Marawi that Amaq has released since the siege started, according to the Long War Journal…

Hundreds of residents are still trapped in the city, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. It is one of the country’s only Muslim-majority cities in a predominantly Christian country, and most of the city’s 200,000 residents have fled.

Marawi is located on the southern-most island of the Philippines, and the Maute group, loosely affiliated with ISIS, “first grabbed national attention in the Philippines when they raided the prison in Marawi in August last year, freeing 23 inmates,” reports the BBC.

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