MAGUINDANAO PROVINCE (Mindanao Examiner / July 30, 2013) – Moro rebels attacked an oil tanker on Tuesday as fighting erupted anew in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao, officials said.
Officials said three members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters were killed and a still undetermined number of gunmen wounded in the clashes in Guindulungan town.
“They attacked the oil tanker and luckily no civilians were killed, but fighting are still going on between the lawless elements and our troops,” Col. Dickson Hermoso, a spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, told the rgional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said the highway in Maguindanao was closed for several hours because of the skirmishes, but reopened at around noontime after troops cleared the area of improvised explosives.
“We have recovered and detonated several IEDs assembled from 81 mm mortar bombs. They were left behind by fleeing gunmen,” he said.
Hermoso said soldiers also stopped a team from the Mindanao Human Rights Action Center and several journalists from getting into the town to protect them from harm.
The group was on its way to evacuation areas where villagers displaced by the fighting are currently staying.
Hermoso said the attack on the oil tanker triggered a military deployment to protect motorists and travellers from rebel offensives. “We don’t want any civilian casualties and troops were deployed to protect innocent villagers and properties,” he said.
He said rebel forces have been attacking civilian and military targets in the Maguindanao despite the observance of the holy month of Ramadan.
“They have been disturbing the peace. They are targeting civilians and military targets,” he said.
The human rights center said the clashes broke out in the village of Bagan and that 200 people fled the area and several groups also escaped the violence from nearby villages.
It said a hardware store in the village was also hit by a cannon round, but there was no report of casualties. Rebels also harassed an army detachment in the village of Buayan in the neighboring town of Datu Piang.
Most of the members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters headed by Ameril Umra Kato, are mostly former rebels from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is now negotiating peace with the government.
Kato’s group broke away with the main rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which is currently negotiating peace with Manila. Kato split with the MILF, headed by Murad Ebrahim, whom he accused of abandoning their demand for an independent state in Mindanao.
Kato – who has formed his own rebel group – vowed to fight for an independent Muslim homeland. The 60-year old rebel leader has several times criticized Ebrahim for talking peace with the Aquino government which insisted on granting wider autonomy to some four million Muslims in Mindanao.
He accused Ebrahim of abandoning their original demand for an independent state and opted instead to negotiate with Manila for a Muslim sub-state.
Kato is facing a string of criminal charges in connection to the series of attacks that he led after the failed signing of the Muslim homeland deal in 2008 between the MILF and the government. The Supreme Court declared the accord as unconstitutional and the aborted deal triggered a series of deadly attacks by Kato’s forces in Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)
20