The Battle of Marawi: Small Team Lessons Learned for the Close Fight by James Lewis – The Cove
In May 2017, Islamist insurgents swarmed through the city of Marawi, taking the population of 200, 000 hostage and announcing it as a new ‘Capitol’ for Islamic State in South-East Asia. This wildly ambitious, unprecedented move triggered a State of Emergency. As a result, from May to October 2017, fighting echelons of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFoP) deployed to Marawi in the Mindanao region of the Southern Philippines. The Southern Philippines has proven a haven for Islamist terrorists for many years, however, anecdotal evidence suggests the region has also seen a recent increase in activity due to an influx of foreign terrorist fighters from the Middle East.
Prior to Marawi, the AFoP had limited experience in urban combat, with their training historically focusing on jungle operations to suppress various Islamist groups and the National People’s Army (NPA), a rebel communist group. As a result, with almost no notice, the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women of the AFoP were required to adapt to this new environment extraordinarily quickly.
The lessons learned by the AFoP from grinding combat in a large, broken, crowded city are important. The Australian Army has sound doctrine and training packages for combat operations in the urban environment, but it must learn everything it can from the AFoP’s vicious Marawi experience to ensure it is best prepared to operate, fight and win in similar urban conflicts.
The aim of this paper is to describe the key tactical lessons the Australian Army can learn from the AFoP’s urban siege of Marawi City.
Consideration of these lessons may inform and improve the Australian Army’s current approach to the force generation of close combat, combined-arms capabilities. It will identify the key tactical lessons learned by the AFoP fighting an intelligent, determined, disciplined and well-equipped terrorist threat in the extraordinarily difficult, intense and complicated terrain.
These lessons are drawn from a wide range of sources, including reporting from Australian and US observers, as well as the Philippines Joint Special Operations Group (JSOG), Light Reaction Regiment (LRR) and Marine Special Operations Group (MARSOG).
Continue on for a detailed analysis of this recent urban battle.