MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine Congress has approved a request by the president to extend martial law in the country's volatile south by a year due to continuing threats by Islamic State group-linked militants and communist insurgents.
A strong majority in the Senate and House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend martial rule, which is expiring at the end of the month, by another year in the southern Mindanao region, scene of decades-long Muslim and communist rebellions in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
President Rodrigo Duterte placed the southern region under martial law after hundreds of Islamic State group-linked militants attacked the Islamic city of Marawi on May 23, 2017, in the worst security crisis he has faced. Troops quelled the siege five months later.
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