Manila: Security camera footage released on Saturday of the casino attack in Manila that killed 37 people shows an armed man setting fires in several rooms and stealing gambling chips but making no attempt to shoot fleeing customers and employees.

A Philippine police spokesman, Oscar Albayalde, said authorities released the footage to show the public that the still-unidentified man acted alone and that his motive was robbery, not terrorism, in the attack early Friday morning at the Resorts World Manila.

"If he was really a terrorist, with all the ammunition he had with him, he would have shot everyone there," Albayalde said. "He could have killed hundreds of people."

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Manila attack, but the police investigation has found no evidence to support that claim, Albayalde said.

President Rodrigo Duterte, after visiting wounded soldiers in Cagayan de Oro on the island of Mindanao, joined in dismissing the claim by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

"It is not ISIS," the president said in his first public comment on the attack. "He did not shoot at people. That is not the way of ISIS, whose way is brutal."

Of the guests and employees who died, 36 were victims of smoke inhalation, Albayalde said. They had taken refuge in rooms in the gambling area rather than fleeing the building. The 37th victim, a South Korean man, died apparently of a heart attack, the South Korean Embassy said. The gunman also died, apparently of a self-inflicted wound.

The Philippines is on alert for terrorist attacks as the military battles hundreds of Islamist militants who have seized part of Marawi City in the southern Philippines.

Duterte declared martial law in the region on May 23, but the military has not been able to dislodge hundreds of fighters from two groups that have declared their loyalty to the Islamic State.

The gunman arrived alone at the Manila resort by taxi. Investigators found and interviewed the taxi driver, who said he picked up the man in the San Lazaro neighborhood of Manila, a community of low-cost, high-rise condos and shopping malls.

The driver said the man spoke fluent Tagalog. Some have speculated that the man was a foreigner because of his fair skin, large build and the fluent English he spoke at the casino.

The footage from numerous security cameras shows the man's movements during the 90-minute episode.

After he arrived, he rode up in an elevator with two women. When he stepped out, he was wearing a mask.

He walked past a metal detector without stopping. A security guard ran after him and the man began firing his weapon, identified by the police as an M4 rifle.

At that point, people began fleeing. Some shouted "ISIS" as they ran, said Armeen Gomez, the chief security officer of Resorts World Manila. More than 1,200 people fled the building.

The man moved through several rooms, pouring fluid on gambling tables and other furniture and setting them on fire. Officials said the building's sprinklers helped suppress the fires.

The fires were most likely a diversionary tactic while the gunman robbed the casino, Albayalde said.

The man reached a room where gambling chips were stored, broke in and loaded more than $2 million worth into a backpack.

After emerging from the room, he engaged in a brief shootout with casino security guards. He and a guard were both wounded.

Bleeding, he walked upstairs to the fifth floor. The loss of blood may have weakened him and doomed any escape plan he had.

He shot open the door of Room 510 and went inside, disappearing from the cameras' view. Police said he set the room on fire and shot himself.

The body was burned beyond recognition, Albayalde said. Authorities conducted an autopsy and collected the man's blood from the stairwell in the hope it would help identify him.

At one point, the man removed his face mask and looked directly into a camera, but that had not yet led to his identification by police.

New York Times