MILF rebels bomb Cotabato reservoir

Camp Siongco, Maguindanao — Suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels and possibly communist guerrillas bombed yesterday morning a government reservoir supplying water to some 10,000 households in Kidapawan City.

Kidapawan officials said the blast stopped water supply to at least 70 percent of the city’s Muslim and Christian communities.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol said the MILF and the New People’s Army (NPA) have joined forces to sow terror in his province and the rest of Mindanao.

Speaking at the weekly Fernandina forum in Greenhills, San Juan, Piñol said the MILF has set up a stronghold in Pikit town after troops overran Camp Abubakar in Matanog in 2000.

"I have been telling authorities that the MILF is setting up their camp in the area but it was not given attention," he said.

Piñol said the NPA has been attacking civilian and military targets in Mindanao to terrorize residents and to confuse government troops.

"This is part of terror attacks being carried out by the NPA and MILF," he said.

In Kidapawan, officials of Barangay Perez, where the resevoir of the Metro Kidapawan Water District is located, told police they saw "suspicious-looking men" moving toward the facility hours before the attack.

"They were even said to have asked from local residents directions to the reservoir hours before the explosions were heard," said Francisco Banguez, chairman of Barangay Perez.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the terrorists blasted an auxiliary water pipe connecting the reservoir to Kidapawan City before bombing another nearby pipe.

The raiders fired at a security guard posted at the reservoir who tried to stop them but he survived the attack unharmed, he added.

Witnesses said the gunmen, who were speaking Maguindanaoan, fired at the surrounding areas before fleeing to the hinterlands.

Kidapawan City police director Superintendent Alexander Tagum said policemen and troops from the Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion have been sent to run after the terrorists.

Policemen and civilian volunteers are guarding the reservoir, he added.

Ando said a platoon of soldiers from the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion have been deployed to secure the main pumping stations of the Cotabato City Water District in nearby Tanuel town.

Two squads of troops have been positioned atop a hill overlooking the water district’s reservoir in Lomboy town, less than two kilometers away from Camp Siongco, he added. — With Perseus Echeminada