Philippines’ Duterte rules out dialogue with ISIS militants, even if they start killing hostages

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine president says he won’t talk to militants aligned with the Islamic State group and has ordered troops to kill them even if the gunmen slaughter their hostages in a besieged southern city.

President Rodrigo Duterte issued his strongest warning yet late Sunday to local and foreign militants who laid siege on Marawi starting May 23, saying he has lost too many soldiers and policemen to the violence and won’t let that pass.

The military says 178 combatants and civilians have been killed in Marawi, the heartland of Islamic faith in the country’s south, after hundreds of gunmen waving Islamic State-style black flags rampaged across the city, burning buildings as they battled troops who were backed by airstrikes and artillery fire.

WATCH: Philippines’ Duterte threatens to extend Mindanao martial law to entire country

1:13 Philippines’ Duterte threatens to extend Mindanao martial law to entire country

Meanwhile, Southeast Asian nations urged greater cooperation to counter the fallout from the battle with the militants in the southern Philippines, the biggest warning yet that the ultra-radical group is building a base in Southeast Asia.

The region is home to 600 million people and includes Indonesia, which has the world’s highest number of Muslims. Authorities in both Indonesia and Malaysia, also Muslim-majority, have said thousands of their citizens are sympathizers of Islamic State and hundreds are believed to have traveled to Syria to join the extremist group.

In recent months, dozens of fighters from Indonesia and Malaysia have crossed from their countries to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, intelligence officials have said, easily passing through waters that have often been lawless and plagued by pirates. Mindanao is the one region in the largely Catholic Philippines to have a significant Muslim minority.

Security experts have warned that Southeast Asian countries are vulnerable to the spread of Islamic State as it suffers setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

“We’re seeing that, as Islamic State is losing ground on the battlegrounds of the Middle East, they’re pushing their franchise overseas as energetically as they can,” said Nigel Inkster of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“We’re seeing this in the southern Philippines but there are other countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, that are at risk.”