Philippine troops found bundles of bank notes and checks worth about $1.6 million that had been abandoned by Islamist militants holed up in Marawi, a discovery that the military said on Tuesday was evidence that the fighters were pulling back.
Fighters linked to Islamic State have been cornered in a built-up sliver of the southern lakeside town after two weeks of intense combat. The military said that over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers.
In one house they found a vault loaded with neat stacks of money worth 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) and checks made out for cash worth 27 million pesos ($550,000).