MILF executes 3 'spies'

Three Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels have reportedly been executed by their comrades for allegedly spying for the military, while three others are being court-martialed, military sources said yesterday.

The report could not be independently confirmed. The MILF denied it, saying their fighters were extremely loyal.

According to military sources who have declined to be identified, one of the rebels was a woman who worked as a nurse at Camp Abubakar, the MILF's main base in Maguindanao.

The executions were reportedly carried out near a river just meters away from the guerrilla training center.

The alleged spies stirred suspicions because their radios and cellular phones were not listed in the MILF's registry of communication equipment.

"At the height of the military shelling along the (Secretary Narciso Ramos) highway, they were suspiciously using the radios in sending messages, some relayed in Filipino. Their commanders found it very surprising for their positions to be hit perfectly by the 105-mm. cannons of the military," one informant told The STAR.

Direct hits on hidden MILF bunkers probably fueled even more doubts, according to Army 6th Infantry Division's civil-military relations chief Maj. Julieto Ando.

"These are not supposed to be seen easily but some of them have been directly hit by our artillery," he said. "We have no confirmations really as to the connections of these alleged spies to the military."

Some residents from the town of Matanog, Maguindanao, mostly relatives of MILF rebels who have fled to safer grounds, said they have heard rumors about the executions.

Capt. Noel Detoyato, 6th Infantry Division spokesman, said they, too, heard of the purge.

"But we cannot confirm this yet. There have been persistent reports about it. For now, it is only the MILF leadership who knows the real score about it," he said.

Ando was not surprised about it, saying the MILF has done it before several times.

"We have verified reports from inside Camp Abubakar that the front has been doing that long ago. When the MILF's Camp Omar and Camp Usman were captured by our forces, some suspected military informers from among their ranks were also executed by firing squad," he said.

Camp Usman in Carmen, North Cotabato was captured in 1998, while Camp Omar in Maguindanao fell only last February after heavy fighting.

A religious leader sympathetic to the MILF, who declined to be identified, told The STAR that the purges could backfire, sow distrust within the rebel ranks and dampen their morale.