AFP stages ‘pre-emptive strike’ on Moro guerrillas in North Cotabato

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Soldiers pounded with howitzers the other night strategic spots surrounding Camp Rajah Muda, a former enclave of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Pikit, North Cotabato, following sightings of armed men massing there.

The military said the bombardment was a "pre-emptive strike" to prevent the armed men from getting nearer farming communities in Rajah Muda, which used to be the second largest camp of the MILF in Central Mindanao.

But Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, said the shelling was "uncalled for" and was an "act of provocation."

"There was no incident in Rajah Muda that would give the military enough reason to bombard the area with cannons," Kabalu told Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City.

Sources from the Army’s intelligence community confirmed the shelling, but clarified it was necessary to flush out from the area a band of rebels involved in recent bombings in many parts of Central Mindanao, including the Oct. 10 bomb attack at a bus terminal in Kidapawan City which left seven people dead.

Instead of shelling MILF positions around Camp Rajah Muda, Kabalu said the military should have first asked the government-MILF joint ceasefire committee to validate the reported presence of lawless elements in the area.

The bombardment came less than a week after Army operatives arrested in Alamada, a hinterland town in North Cotabato, MILF demolition expert Abu Hashim Solaiman, now detained at the provincial jail for illegal possession of explosives.

Solaiman, whom the military tagged as a "demolition expert" who used to teach MILF guerrillas how to make bombs, was intercepted by members of the 38th Infantry Battalion and the Army’s 12th Intelligence Service Unit on the road from Alamada town to Kidapawan City last week.

Kabalu earlier had admitted that Solaiman was a deputy training director of the MILF’s Abdurahman Bides Military Academy at Camp Abubakar in Buldon, Maguindanao before the enclave fell to government control two years ago.

Army Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said armed men have lately been harassing their troops in the neighboring towns of Pikit and Pagalungan, Maguindanao.

Ando said civilians in the two municipalities have been asking the military to intensify their patrols to prevent Moro rebels from roaming around communities in Pagalungan and in the Rajah Muda area.