COTABATO CITY(Mindanao Examiner / June 6, 2014) – Moro rebels attacked a military truck, detonating a roadside bomb in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao, killing at least two soldiers and wounding several more.
Abu Misry Mama, a spokesman for the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, owned to Thursday attack in the village of Meta in the town of Datu Unsay. He said BIFM fighters also attacked a group of soldiers on another village in Datu Unsay, sparking a firefight. He said there was no casualty on the BIFM side.
Mama said troops continue to attack Muslim communities in Maguindanao, especially in areas where BIFM is actively operating.
“We are just fighting for the rights of every Muslim and we shall continue our offensive because this is a fight for justice, a fight for freedom,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner by phone from his hideout in Maguindanao.
Army officials and their spokesman at the 6th Infantry Division did not answer phone calls or messages made by journalists trying to get more details about the latest attack.
Last month, BIFM fighters also bombed a convoy carrying soldiers in the same village and killing and wounding at least 5 infantrymen. The convoy was carrying Col. Gener del Rosario, commander of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade, when rebels detonated a bomb planted at the Meta Bridge.
The military has blamed the BIFM for the series of attacks on government forces in Maguindanao. It also linked the rebels to past bombings in the province. The BIFF – under former Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebel leader, Ustadz Ameril Umra Kato – has been waging a secessionist war after splitting with the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2011.
Kato accused MILF leader Murad Ebrahim for abandoning their struggle for independence and betraying the rebel group when he agreed to a peace deal with Manila. Kato and another senior rebel leader, Abdulla Macapaar, were both accused by Philippine authorities as behind the series of deadly attacks in Mindanao in 2008 after peace negotiators failed to sign a Muslim homeland deal because the Supreme Court declared the accord unconstitutional.
Kato suffered a stroke in 2011, but his condition remains unknown, although there were reports that a new commander – Sheik Mohidin Animbang – has taken over the command of the BIFF, whose members were mostly former fighters of the MILF and rival group Moro National Liberation Front. (With a report from J. Magtanggol)
20