Maj. Sam Deles, spokesman of the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade, said about seven MILF rebels aboard an L-300 van and a motorcycle fired rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns at the outpost of the 7th Special Forces Company in Barangay Cuyapo at about 7:40 p.m.
Wounded were 18-year-old civilian Jennifer del Rosario, M/Sgt. Hernandito Dimasilao, Sergeants Perry Cano, Carlo Homo and Elias Matulac, and Corporals Miko Luna and Ernesto Briones.
Briones and Del Rosario are still in critical condition at a private hospital in Tacurong City, while the other victims have been declared out of danger.
In other developments:
• Suspected Moro guerrillas seized a businessman in a remote village in Maitum, Sarangani last Tuesday night, the military said.
• President Estrada’s visit to Zamboanga City on Dec. 28 will be capped with the surrender of 85 hardcore members of the MILF, the Armed Forces’ Southern Command said.
Reports said the MILF attack in Tantangan occurred as the Army troopers and several civilian guests were celebrating the blessing of the military detachment.
The 7th Special Forces Company took over the post last week from the 64th Infantry Battalion that was transferred to the Camp Abubakar area in Maguindanao.
Deles said they were having dinner when the armed men alighted from a motorcycle coming from the direction of Koronadal City and a van coming from Tacurong City. Both vehicles stopped a few meters in front of the detachment.
The surprised soldiers gave chase but eventually lost track of the attackers.
Military sources said the attackers could be MILF members based in the nearby towns of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat.
Tantangan is bounded by the towns of Buluan in Maguindanao, particularly near the MILF’s fallen Camp Al Fateh, and Lutayan in Sultan Kudarat, the site of fierce clashes between the military and MILF rebels since last year.
The kidnappers, he said, arrived on board at least three motorboats.
Before fleeing with the trader, the armed men looted the Saavedra residence and a neighbor’s, carting away food supplies, personal belongings and cash.
As of yesterday, the Saavedra family has not heard from the abductors.
Sarangani Gov. Priscilla Chiongbian has convened a crisis management committee to map out plans for a possible negotiated release of Saavedra.
The rebels, Atendido said, will come from different areas in the south, including Central Mindanao, where the military had overrun more than 34 lairs of the MILF, including Camp Abubakar, the front’s last bastion which fell to government control on July 9 after a two-week offensive which exacted casualties on both sides.
For security reasons, Atendido declined to identify the leaders of the 85 rebel returnees. He said MILF chieftain Hashim Salamat has a standing order for his men to execute their comrades who will avail themselves of the government’s reconciliation program for Moro secessionist rebels.
Early this week, 37 MILF rebels from the Maguindanao towns of Buldon, Barira and Matanog turned themselves in to Armed Forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes in a simple ceremony at the headquarters of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.
The rebel returnees were led by foreign-trained commanders Lili Awal, Matalin Mimbantas, Gardo Kadatuan and Ali Kuro. They surrendered through the intercession of the 6th ID’s commander, Gen. Roy Kyamko.
Atendido said they expect more MILF rebels to surrender after the Muslim fasting season of Ramadan, which will end on Dec. 26.
But Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, downplayed the mass surrender of MILF rebels in the south as a "thinly veiled propaganda" aimed at projecting that the separatist group is now indeed a spent force.
"These alleged rebels are nothing but ordinary residents of Southern Mindanao who were gathered and asked to wear military uniforms just for the purpose of creating a scenario," Kabalu said.
Meanwhile, soldiers bagged a notorious MILF commander in Sarangani last Tuesday, reports reaching Southcom said.
The captured rebel leader, Romulo Napila alias Commander Poppy, was cornered by patrolling soldiers while resting in the house of his cousin in Barangay Maguiling, a secluded district in Maitum, Sarangani.
Napila, sensing that soldiers had surrounded his hideout, peacefully turned himself in and yielded a caliber .38 revolver and a 12 gauge shotgun. — With Roel Pareño, John Unson