MANILA, Philippines: Gunshots and explosions erupted after midnight in a hotel and casino complex near Manila’s airport, sending hundreds fleeing into darkened streets early Friday in what police said was an attack by a lone gunman with no apparent links to terrorism.
A Filipino operative for the Daesh group, in a quick communique, immediately took responsibility for the attack. But police cast doubt on any such links and suggested robbery as a possible motive.
It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed in the attack or even if it had concluded.
Shots and loud bangs rang out shortly after midnight (1600 GMT) in the buildings close to Terminal Three of Ninoy Aquino International Airport and an air force base, prompting fears that a militant attack was under way.
Medical officials said at least 25 people were hurt, some seriously, as they rushed to escape.
The violence unfolded as Muslim militants aligned with the Daesh group fended off government forces for a 10th day in the southern city of Marawi. That unrest had sparked fears that the militants might attack elsewhere to divert the focus of thousands of troops trying to quell the siege.
But Director General Ronald Dela Rosa, national police chief in the Philippines, said there was no concrete evidence that the attack was terrorism. He said one gunman was behind the attack and was still at large more than two hours after it began.
“Don’t panic, this is not a cause for alarm. We cannot attribute this to terrorism,” he said.
“We are looking into a robbery angle because he did not hurt any people and went straight to the casino chips storage room. He parked at the second floor and barged into the casino, shooting large TV screens and poured gasoline on a table setting it on fire.”
Police were in the complex searching for the gunman, whom dela Rosa described as “foreign-looking, a Caucasian, about six feet tall.” The suspect may have escaped because smoke had obscured footage for CCTV cameras, he added.
It was not clear how the gunman smuggled enough gasoline into the crowded casino to cause explosions and what prompted Dela Rosa to rule out terrorism so quickly.
About 90 minutes after the attack began, Resorts World Manila said in its Facebook account that it was “currently on lockdown following reports of gunfire from unidentified men,” adding, “the company is working closely with the Philippine National Police to ensure that all guests and employees are safe.”
“We ask for your prayers during these difficult times,” the company said.
Philippine police cordoned off the area near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
“I heard many, many gunshots,” Julio Silva, a casino player who managed to dash out of the mall complex amid the gunfire, told DZMM radio network.
Silva said he saw a SWAT member who was shouting: “I was hit, I was hit.”
A DZMM radio reporter on the scene said she saw two ambulances ferrying two people away, one with a bandage on the leg and another in wheelchair.
As news of the attack spread, US President Donald Trump offered the thoughts and prayers of the American people to the Philippines.
“It is really very sad as to what’s going on throughout the world with terror,” he said from the White House Rose Garden. Trump said he was “closely monitoring the situation” and would continue to provide updates.
The SITE Intelligence Group, a US terrorism monitor, said an Islamic State-linked Filipino operative who provides daily updates on the ongoing clashes in Marawi claimed “lone wolf soldiers” of the Daesh group were responsible for the attack.
An English message by the operative was distributed across several pro-IS Telegram chat groups, SITE said. According to SITE, he wrote: “The lone wolf soldiers of Khilafah attack the heart of Kufar the city of Manila in Resort World.”
President Rodrigo Duterte sent soldiers to the southern Philippines to end the siege by about 500 militants. Officials say 120 militants and at least 25 soldiers, five policemen and two dozen civilians have been killed in the fighting since early last week.
Duterte declared martial law in the Mindanao region, the southern third of the Philippines, to crush the insurrection and poured in troops backed by airstrikes, artillery fire and armored vehicles.
The unrest has boosted fears that the Daesh group’s violent ideology is gaining a foothold in the country’s restive southern islands, where Muslim separatist rebellions have raged for nearly half a century.
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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Alberto Marquez in Manila contributed to this report.
Terror doubted in Manila casino attack, robbery angle eyed
Terror doubted in Manila casino attack, robbery angle eyed
Harris woos on-the-fence Republicans, Trump tours storm damage
US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris made a push to woo moderates in her rival’s camp in three swing states Monday, while Donald Trump slammed the government’s response to Hurricane Helene as he toured the devastated state of North Carolina.
With just over two weeks until Election Day, the Democratic vice president and her Republican opponent are on a blitz through the battlegrounds that will decide the outcome in a race that polls say is too close to call.
On Monday, Harris appeared in Pennsylvania alongside Liz Cheney — a prominent Republican — who called on undecided voters “to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump.”
Trump toured storm-damaged Asheville and repeated conspiracy theories about the government’s disaster response. Later, at a rally in Greenville, he hammered home his campaign message that immigrants were “looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging” the country.
On Monday alone, Harris had events scheduled in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — Rust Belt states that were in Trump’s column in 2016 but crucial to President Joe Biden’s victory four years later.
Cheney and her former vice president father Dick were once considered fixtures in the Republican firmament but have been ostracized since it was taken over by Trump.
Harris said Trump’s dominance in politics since his shock 2016 election had led Americans to “point the finger at one another” and left the country “exhausted.”
Cheney, who endorsed Harris last month, echoed that view.
“We’re going to reject cruelty,” she said. “We have the chance in this race to elect somebody who you know is going to defend the rule of law.”
Speaking in Michigan, Harris called for voters to put partisan politics aside when they cast their ballot.
“Regardless of who they voted for in the last election and the party with which they’re registered to vote, on some issues we just have to all be Americans,” she said.
Both candidates have courted voters from blocs that have historically sided with their rivals, a sign of how close the contest is.
On Monday, Trump appealed to Arab Americans in a social media post, calling Harris a “war hawk” over the White House’s handling of Israel’s war with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump has been criticized for a tumultuous few weeks that have featured rambling monologues and threats about weaponizing the military against Democrats who he calls “the enemy from within.”
In Greenville, he painted a picture of a United States that was “crippled and destroyed” by immigration, crime and inflation.
Earlier, in Asheville, the 78-year-old doubled down on conspiracy theories, accusing the administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of redirecting disaster funds to bring in undocumented immigrants and bolster Democratic votes.
Officials in the state were forced to issue hurricane response fact-checks after Trump and his backers pushed what Biden called “an onslaught of lies” about confiscated property, neglected Republican areas and funds diverted to migrants.
Trump notched his narrowest victory in North Carolina when he lost to Biden in 2020.
Both Harris and Trump are fighting to lock down a few thousand wavering voters in key districts as they bid to edge ahead in the race.
Harris’s campaign brought in and spent more than $200 million in September — more than three times as much as Trump, who is out on bail in two criminal cases and awaiting sentencing in a third over allegations of 2020 election-related misconduct.
Despite the vice president’s campaign spending, opinion polls suggest the race has been tied since late August.
As the pair make their closing arguments, a new Washington Post-Schar School poll of registered voters in seven battleground states found support even at 47 percent for each candidate. Harris had a one-point lead among likely voters.
Pro-Trump tech mogul Elon Musk has weighed heavily on the election, pouring $75 million into his political committee, turning his social media company X into a bullhorn for the Republican side and stumping for Trump in Pennsylvania.
But the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, suggested authorities could investigate Musk’s promise at a weekend rally to award a $1 million prize daily until Election Day to a person who has signed an online petition “supporting the US Constitution.”
N.Korea sending troops to Ukraine would be ‘dangerous’ development: US
UNITED NATIONS: The United States on Monday said it would be a dangerous development for North Korea to send troops to support Russia in Ukraine, as Seoul has asserted.
“We have seen reports the DPRK has sent forces and is preparing to send additional soldiers to Ukraine to fight alongside Russia,” Robert Wood, US ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council.
“If true, this marks a dangerous and highly concerning development and an obvious deepening of the DPRK-Russia military relationship,” Wood said, using the acronym for the North’s official name.
“We are consulting with our allies and partners on the implications of such a dramatic move,” he added.
Seoul’s spy agency said on Friday that North Korea had decided to send a “large-scale” troop deployment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with 1,500 special forces already in Russia’s Far East and undergoing training.
The agency estimated the North could send around 12,000 soldiers in total.
The US State Department is “not yet at a point where we’re able to confirm those reports and whether they are accurate,” deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said Monday.
France’s UN envoy Nicolas de Riviere told the UN Security Council that the deployment of North Korean soldiers would constitute a further escalation.
He added that Pyongyang’s “increasing support for the Russian war effort is very worrying.”
The United States and its allies have already voiced concern about North Korea providing weapons to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
King Charles to meet Indigenous Australians in civil rights birthplace Redfern
SYDNEY: Britain’s King Charles travels on Tuesday to Redfern, birthplace of Australia’s urban Aboriginal civil rights movement in inner Sydney, a day after being heckled by an Indigenous senator at Parliament House.
Charles, on his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer, had finished speaking when the independent senator and activist Lidia Thorpe shouted that she did not accept his sovereignty over Australia, and demanded a treaty for Indigenous people.
A national referendum on whether to alter Australia’s constitution to recognize Aboriginal people was rejected last year, a sore point for many Indigenous Australians. Charles referred to Australia’s “long and sometimes difficult journey toward reconciliation” in his speech.
He will meet with Indigenous Elders in the inner city suburb of Redfern, where the Aboriginal civil rights movement was founded in the 1970s, on Tuesday.
At the National Center for Indigenous Excellence, Charles will speak with Indigenous organizations and Redfern Elders including “bush tucker” — or native food — chef Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo.
He will also visit an inner city social housing project with sustainable features, designed with the support of his King’s Trust Australia charity. Charles will tour the Glebe construction site with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who grew up on a public housing estate.
Julie Bishop, chair of the King’s Trust Australia, said the charity “closely follows His Majesty’s passions – helping young people into work, coaching veterans and defense families in entrepreneurship, and working on sustainable community projects.”
Charles and Queen Camilla are visiting Sydney and Canberra over six days before traveling to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.
The public will have an opportunity to meet the royal couple at the Opera House later on Tuesday.
Ukraine foreign minister calls for support to stop Russian strikes on its Black Sea ports
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Monday he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had discussed safe navigation for shipping in the Black Sea.
“I conveyed Ukraine’s interest in further developing cooperation between Ukraine and Türkiye, especially in defense area,” Sybiha wrote on the social platform X.
“I also underscored the importance of ensuring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. We also discussed ways to a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace.”
Sybiha had earlier called for support to stop intensified Russian strikes on Ukrainian Black Sea port infrastructure, in comments made while on a visit to Turkiye on Monday.
He said such strikes in recent weeks had damaged four civilian vessels.
Turkiye has offered to act as an intermediary to end the more than 2-1/2-year old war sparked by the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and has endeavoured to maintain good ties with both Moscow and Kyiv.
“We see benefit in once again discussing initiatives that could serve peace, like the Black Sea grain initiative,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said, referring to the deal Turkiye helped broker to allow Black Sea exports from Ukraine’s ports.
“I discussed this with my counterpart as well, we admire Ukraine’s positive stance on this.”
The Black Sea grain initiative remained in force for about a year until Russia backed out of the accord in July 2023, saying provisions of the agreement were not being fulfilled.
Italy PM seeks to save Albanian migrant deal amid spat with judges
- Rome has said that other European Union countries are interested in its flagship policy
- Bangladeshi and Egyptian migrants sent to Albania had to leave after the judges’ ruling
ROME: Italy’s hard-right government passed a new law Monday to overcome legal opposition to a migrant deal with Albania, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused judges of political bias.
The decree, which was adopted at a cabinet meeting late Monday, enshrines in law the government’s definition of countries as “safe,” which would mean Rome can fast-track applications from asylum seekers from those countries.
The move follows a ruling by Italian judges on Friday against the detention of the first migrants sent for processing in Italian-run centers in Albania.
Rome has said that other European Union countries are interested in its flagship policy as a way of processing asylum requests in countries outside the bloc.
But 12 Bangladesh and Egyptian migrants sent to Albania last week had to leave again after the judges’ ruling and were taken to Italy.
The judges pointed to a recent European Court of Justice ruling which stipulates that EU states can only designate whole countries as safe, not parts. Some nations on Italy’s list include areas which are not considered safe.
As a general rule, EU law takes precedence over conflicting national laws.
Meloni on Friday slammed the ruling as “prejudiced” and said she had called the cabinet meeting “to approve laws to overcome this obstacle, because I don’t think it’s up to the judges to say which countries are safe, but the government.”
The cabinet decree would enter into force immediately, before being made law by parliament, where the government has a majority.
The law states that all parts of the designated countries are safe for all categories of people, disregarding caveats in the government’s current directives.
However, the government did exclude three countries — Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria — from its previous list of 22 “safe” countries in order to conform with a recent ruling from the European Court of Justice. The list of countries will be updated annually.
Immigration lawyer Guido Savio told AFP the abrupt change would likely lead to new legal challenges.
Italy has long been on the front line of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe and Meloni was elected in 2022 on a pledge to stop the boats.
Her coalition has previously clashed with judges over attempts to limit the work done by charity organizations who rescue migrants at sea.
The row escalated Sunday, with Meloni publishing excerpts on social media of a letter sent by one prosecutor to a group which includes judges.
In it, Marco Patarnello warned that Meloni is “stronger and much more dangerous” than former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced frequent legal woes and who repeatedly attacked the judiciary.
Right-wing politicians said the letter proved the legal bias against the government.
Critics pointed out however that Meloni did not post the rest of the text, in which Patarnello said “we must not engage in political opposition, but we must defend jurisdiction and the citizens’ right to an independent judge.”
Across the European Union, individual member states are responsible for drawing up their own “safe” country lists. However, the EU intends eventually to agree on a bloc-wide list, officials say.
