Ando: Pentagon hijack meant to divert military’s attention

COTABATO CITY — Suspected members of the notorious Pentagon gang hijacked on Tuesday night a hauler truck loaded with 10 tons of rice in Maguindanao’s Buluan town, not far away from municipalities where military and Moro rebel forces have been squabbling for control of strategic patches of land supposedly covered by a ceasefire.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said they are convinced that the hijacking was meant to divert the military’s attention from its continuing purge of Pentagon and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces in the towns of Sultan sa Barongis, Datu Piang and Shariff Aguak, all in Maguindanao.

Ando, however, clarified that the military’s ongoing tactical maneuvers in the three towns are meant only to drive away rebels from the demilitarized areas which they occupied last week and whose residents they harassed in retaliation for the death of at least 13 Pentagon members in hostilities in Sultan sa Barongis.

Ando said at least 20 Pentagon gunmen flagged down the truck loaded with rice in Barangay Kayaga, Buluan town, ordered its driver and his helper to disembark and commandeered the vehicle. The truck was bound for Davao City from Noralla, South Cotabato.

The truck, owned by grains trader Edilberto Pasciolan, was found abandoned yesterday morning in Valencia, Bukidnon, some 400 kilometers northwest of the spot where it was hijacked, with its rice cargo gone.

Ando said intelligence operatives of the 6th ID and the 301st Infantry Brigade in Tacurong City were still gathering information on the hijacking.

"We are considering the possibility that they perpetrated the highway robbery because they are in serious need of food as a result of the heavy fighting in Sultan sa Barongis," he said.

Just a few hours before the Buluan incident, clashes erupted between MILF rebels and soldiers in Barangays Masigay in Datu Piang and Dasikil in Mamasapano, both in Maguindanao.

Ando said the firefight in Datu Piang erupted when suspected MILF rebels opened fire on patrolling combatants of the 37th Infantry Battalion, provoking a 15-minute gunbattle.

The firefight waned only after the rebels fled toward nearby Sultan sa Barongis carrying at least five wounded companions and leaving behind assorted ammunition, including a dozen B-40 anti-tank rockets.

While soldiers and MILF rebels were trading shots in Datu Piang, soldiers and rebels were also pounding each other’s positions in Mamasapano.

Ando said the soldiers who clashed with the rebels in Mamasapano were dispatched there to verify the farmers’ reports about the presence of armed men collecting "revolutionary taxes" in their community.

"They were provoked by the armed men so they were forced to engage their attackers," Ando said.

Two rebels were wounded in the ensuing skirmishes, according to the Maguindanao peace and order council.

Soldiers seized from the scene two M-16 rifles, an M-14 rifle and an M79 shoulder-fired grenade launcher, which the fleeing rebels left behind.