Wednesday, July 05, 2006
2 Moro rebels killed in military assault
By Al Jacinto
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Two Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) soldiers were killed in a military assault near a major rebel base in the southern province of Maguindanao, as sporadic but fierce clashes threaten to derail government's peace talks with Muslim rebels in the restive region.
Sporadic fighting continued in Shariff Aguak town and three other areas in Maguindanao province, where rebels are actively operating. "Two of our fighters are killed in a military attack near the MILF's Camp Omar. We have a total of four soldiers martyred," said Eid Kabalu, an MILF spokesman.
He said the Monday assault violated a fragile ceasefire agreement. The fighting, Kabalu said, is threatening the peace talks. "The situation right now is very volatile and tense and the continued attacks on MILF areas would harm the peace process and we are holding our line and rebel forces are fighting back only in self-defense," Kabalu said.
The military's Southern Command did not give any statement about the attack on Camp Omar.
The MILF, which is currently negotiating peace with Manila, said paramilitary forces working for the powerful Andal Ampatuan, the governor of Maguindanao, attacked the rebel base Camp Omar in retaliation for the killing of the politician's nephew in a roadside bombing last month.
The governor escaped a roadside bomb attack in Shariff Aguak, but five people, one of them his relative, was killed and 14 others injured in what authorities claimed was the handiwork of the MILF, the country's largest Muslim rebel group fighting for a separate Islamic state in the south.
The rebel group denied it was behind the bombing and claimed militias simultaneously attacked MILF strongholds with mortars in retaliation for the killing of Ampatuan's relative.
The military said the clashes began when police tried to arrest two MILF commanders who were tagged as behind the bombing in Shariff Aguak. It said rebels fired rockets on an army post, manned by soldiers and militias, in the village of Koloy in Shariff Aguak, sparking a firefight that spread to four other villages.
The governor, a staunch ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, could not be reached for comment, but Nori Unas, the provincial administrator, said the bombing targeted the governor who was unhurt in the blast.
The bomb, he said, was left near a parked vehicle on the market where the politician's convoy had passed. "The governor was obviously the target of the attack," he said.
The military earlier demanded that the MILF pull out its soldiers in Shariff Aguak town, but Kabalu said authorities should first disarm the militias and seize their weapons because many of them were acting as private armies of politicians.
Murad Ebharim, the secluded chieftain of the MILF, on Monday ordered rebel forces in Maguindanao to remain inside their camps and only defend themselves from attacks. "The order of Brother Murad is for the rebels to stay put and defend their positions," Kabalu said.
Kabalu said the MILF's Camp Omar is home to tens of thousands of rebels and their supporters and straddles the towns of Shariff Aguak, Datu Piang, Kabuntalan, and Datu Saudi Ampatuan, all in Maguindanao, and the towns of Midsayap and Aleosan in North Cotabato province.
But the military said the MILF controls no area. "There are no so-called MILF territories or camps. There is only one democratic government," said an army commander involved in the operation against the MILF in Maguindanao.
The MILF said rebel forces killed and wounded dozens of militias in the fighting since last week. He said MILF fighters also captured an army command base used by militias to attack MILF forces in Shariff Aguak.
In February, security and rebel forces clashed for weeks in Shariff Aguak and left more than a dozen people dead from both sides. The fighting erupted after the MILF opposed a provincial government road construction that rebels claimed would encroach into their territories in the village of Datu Unsay.
President Arroyo opened peace talks in 2001 with the MILF in an effort to put an end to more than three decades of bloody fighting in the strife-torn, but mineral-rich Mindanao. (Sunnex)
(July 5, 2006 issue)
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