GMA declares victory over MILF terrorist cells

President Arroyo declared victory yesterday in the 10-day-old military campaign against "terrorist cells" allegedly sheltered by the largest Muslim separatist group in southern Philippines.

"The terrorist attackers of Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte and Miago, Lanao del Norte have been dislodged from their bases and dispersed into ragtag groups being run to the ground by government troops," she said in a speech at Malacañang.

Mrs. Arroyo had ordered selective "punitive" strikes against Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) units she blamed for the deadly bombings and raids in Mindanao shortly before her state visit to the United States on May 17.

"The investigation into the Davao and Koronadal bombings is bearing fruit with the arrest of the perpetrators of these and even previous terrorist attacks," she added.

The President has warned the 12,500-member MILF against giving succor to "terrorist cells" as it waged a campaign to set up an Islamic state in Mindanao.

She also told the MILF to surrender the suspected bombers and raiders responsible for nearly 100 deaths and to renounce alleged ties with foreign terror groups by June 1 or be branded as a "terrorist organization."

However, even with the President’s pronouncements of victory, residents of rebel-infested areas in Mindanao were reportedly fleeing their homes once again due to continuing harassment of the MILF.

In a report sent to Malacañang yesterday, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) national operation office director Wilma Cabrera said many civilians who have already returned to their homes were forced to return to evacuation centers.

But Cabrera maintained that contrary to published reports (not in The STAR), people displaced in the ongoing military assault were way below 300,000.

She noted that Region Southern Mindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) reported no additional evacuees since the start of the latest military operations.

Reports reaching Camp Siongco in Maguindanao yesterday also disclosed that soldiers gunned down rebels who plundered a farming community in South Upi. Three other suspected MILF rebels were wounded in the attack.

The hostilities in Barangay Itaw, South Upi reportedly erupted when a team of soldiers from the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion open fired on some 20 MILF rebels who stole more than a dozen farm animals in the area.

The soldiers recovered all the stolen animals as well as the assorted rifle ammunition and live B-40 anti-tank rockets that the rebels left behind.

Local officials in South Upi said the band that raided Barangay Itaw could be the same group responsible for earlier cattle-rustlings in secluded farmlands in the town. — AFP, Mayen Jaymalin, John Unson