10 MILF rebs killed in AFP air assault in Maguindanao

COTABATO — At least 10 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas were killed when government troops launched an air assault on rebels planning to blow up power transmission towers in the Southern Philippines, officials said yesterday.

Soldiers deployed on the boundary of Datu Paglas and Buluan towns in Mindanao after residents there tipped them off about the MILF plot, the military said.

Some 100 MILF rebels were spotted massing up in the area, triggering a gunbattle, regional Army spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando said.

Meanwhile, the MILF has denied reports that it had bought weapons and munitions from a foreign dealer — purchases which include M-16 assault rifles, M-203 grenade launchers and rocket propelled grenades and bullets for the assault rifles.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the reports were just products of the military "psy-ops" or psychological operations.

"What is their proof? We have not bought weapons. It’s just part of the military’s psy-ops," Kabalu said in a phone interview, debunking allegations by a Visayas congressman that the MILF bought $2 million worth of arms from foreign black market sources.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Gen. Dionisio Santiago sad his J-2 (intelligence/research) units were already evaluating the reported $2 million purchase of arms from the foreign blackmarket by the MILF. The reports of the arms purchase was based on documents retrieved from the Buliok complex in Pikit, North Cotabato.

Santiago confirmed the disclosures made by Iloilo Rep. Rolex Suplico, one of the congressmen who conducted an ocular inspection of and briefing about the documents by military commanders.

In a joint press briefing at the Palace yesterday, Santiago made a cellular phone call to Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga to confirm the reported purchase of arms by the MILF.

"(Senga) says there is a document, one for $400,000 and another for $600,000, but these figures were before (Camp) Abubakar (fell to the all out war declared on Muslim rebels by former President Joseph Estrada), when the documents were seized," Santiago said.

"The money may have been used already or not yet used," Santiago said. "(Senga) said the documents were mentioned in passing in the briefing with the congressmen."

He said Senga reported to him over the phone that the documents were a combination of pictures and documents, and that Senga promised to send these documents and pictures to him by today.

He also challenged the MILF to prove they were not the ones who toppled the power pylons in Northern Mindanao. "They’re claiming there’s another group behind (the sabotage). I think it’s their responsibility to prove they were not the ones."

The Arroyo administration will push for peace with the MILF, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said, "but not at any cost."

Bunye reiterated President Arroyo’s policy to proceed with the planned resumption of peace talks with the MILF, but said the administration was not oblivious to the suspected MILF attacks in Maguindanao.

Bombardment

Two OV-10 attack planes bombarded the rebel positions, leaving at least 10 of the MILF gunmen dead, Ando said.

"The bodies of the rebels will be retrieved today and turned over to the local authorities," he said.

"They planned to bomb steel towers as part of their destabilization offensive on non-combatants and non-military targets," local army brigade commander Col. Agustin Dima-ala told reporters.

"They are running out of bullets, running out of energy and running out of resources, so they resort to destabilization."

The MILF blacked out Mindanao, home to 18 million people, last week by blowing up at least 17 steel transmission towers belonging to the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Transmission Corp. (Transco).

Last week’s blackout followed a major military offensive against the MILF’s 2,000-hectare Buliok complex in Liguasan Marsh, Pikit, North Cotabato as soldiers pursued members and leaders of the notorious Pentagon kidnap gang.

The military said it was pursuing the Pentagon gang, which they claim was given refuge in the Buliok complex by the MILF. The Pikit offensive killed nearly 200 people and displaced 100,000 others.

Kabalu, however, disputed military reports and said one MILF guerrilla was wounded while 13 soldiers were killed in the clash.

Kabalu said the MILF rebels seized an M-60 machinegun, M-16 rifles and pistols. The rebels were based in the area, an MILF stronghold, and did not plan to destroy power pylons, he added.

The fighting displaced 40 families, including some who had just returned to their homes after fleeing the Pikit military offensive.

In a separate incident in Maguindanao, suspected MILF rebels set 22 houses ablaze in a Muslim farming village in Datu Paglas Sunday, an attack the military said was triggered by the community’s rejection of the excessive taxation activities of the MILF forces there.

Ando said the rebels also strafed several homes with automatic gunfire in another village as they fled the one they had looted and burned.

He said the rebels first surrounded the houses in a secluded sitio in Barangay Bunawan, Datu Paglas, a booming agricultural town in the second district of Maguindanao, then herded the villagers to one area and set the houses on fire.

"The residents there have long been opposing the MILF’s supposed collection from them of revolutionary taxes," Ando said.

Ando added that animosity between the villagers and rebels worsened last week, when the local folk ignored a demand by the MILF for them to provide sanctuary to rebels driven away from the Buliok Complex during the Pikit offensive.

Several families were displaced as a result of the raid, Catholic priest Bert Layson said. "This will make it doubly hard for us to convince the evacuees to return to their villages," Layson said.

About half of the 46,000 villagers who fled their homes last month remained in evacuation centers in Pikit and in the homes of relatives in nearby towns, Layson said.

Skirmishes also took place Sunday along the boundaries of Sultan Kudarat and the towns of Columbio, Datu Paglas and Buluan in Maguindanao between the Army and the MILF group suspected of blowing up the transmission towers.

Ando said the hostilities erupted when the rebels opened fire on Army combatants running after the MILF guerrillas behind the bombings last week of two Napocor transmission towers in the area.

The 6th Infantry Division, Ando said, had to use MG-520 attack helicopters to drive the rebels away and prevent them from getting close to populated areas in the three towns.

MILF await Malaysia’s ‘imprimatur’

As the skirmishes continue, the MILF said it will only resume peace talks with Malacañang if it gets an "imprimatur" from the Malaysian government, MILF chief negotiator Al-Haj Murad said.

"As of this time, we haven’t received any formal input yet from Malaysian authorities with regards to the reported efforts of the Philippine government to revive the peace talks," Murad told Cotabato-based Catholic radio station dxMS in a long-distance telephone interview from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"In the meantime," Murad said, "our forces will continue with their ‘active defense maneuvers’ in areas where the government and the MILF continue to figure in sporadic encounters."

"Our forces have nowhere to go," Murad added. "They can only move around and defend themselves if cornered by pursuing military forces."

The MILF earlier set the pullout of the military from the Buliok complex as a condition for the resumption of peace negotiations with the government.

Murad said the Pikit offensive and capture of Buliok complex has dented the cordiality of the GRP-MILF talks, which began on Jan. 7, 1997, but have been dogged by nagging security problems in areas covered by the ceasefire.

The 12,500-member MILF is fighting a 25-year-old guerrilla war to set up an Islamic state in the southern third of the Philippine islands.

Meanwhile, Napocor and military officials met in Davao to discuss security measures to safeguard transmission towers in Mindanao.

Southcom chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya said the security plan came after MILF bombers toppled the Napocor and Transco pylons last month. – John Unson, Roel Pareño, Mike Frialde, Marichu Villanueva, AFP