ZAMBOANGA CITY – Two government soldiers were killed and another injured in an attack by Abu Sayyaf rebels before dawn Monday on a marine post in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Officials said the rebels assaulted the post manned by 22nd Marine Company in Talipao town in Sulu, one of five provinces under the restive Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Marines fought the rebels for about 15 minutes until the gunmen fled.
There was no report of Abu Sayyaf casualties and officials would not say how and why the rebels managed to get so close to the marine post undetected and launched the assault.
It was the second time in two weeks that rebels assaulted the military in their own turf. Dozens of Abu Sayyaf gunmen under Radulan Sahiron also attacked the base of the army’s 32nd Infantry Battalion in Patikul town on December 15 that left at least 5 soldiers wounded.
The latest assault came barely a week after the military claimed to have killed 5 Abu Sayyaf rebels under Commander Ninok Sapari in a clash in Patikul’s Liang village.
But village officials denied the military report and accused marines of killing an innocent civilian, Datu Kimar Amirul, who was allegedly taken by the soldiers to guide them in Liang and was eventually killed in cold blood.
There was no immediate statement from the military about the extrajudicial killing of Amirul, but troops deployed in the province have been accused of human rights violations and extrajudicial killings of civilians suspected as rebels or sympathizers of the Abu Sayyaf in the past.
The military previously said that the operations against the Abu Sayyaf are continuing in the Muslim region. (Mindanao Examiner)
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