MILF attacks military detachment in Datu Saudi

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front attacked on Sunday afternoon a militia detachment in Datu Saudi, Maguindanao, provoking skirmishes that forced hundreds of villagers to evacuate to safer areas.

Eid Kabalu, spokesperson of the MILF, was quick to clarify, however, that their central leadership did not order the attack and that it was pulled off by certain rebels in the area in retaliation for the shooting earlier that day of their companion by a militiaman identified with local officials.

Highly-placed military sources in Datu Saudi have confirmed that the rebels, armed with anti-tank rockets and assault rifles, surrounded the detachment along a national highway in Barangay Dapiawan in the same town and, without warning, opened fire.

Militiamen and civilian volunteers manning the detachment fought back and engaged with the rebels in a 20-minute gunbattle.

Datu Saudi Mayor Shamron Ampatuan, chairman of the Municipal Peace and Order Council, said the incident forced hundreds of his constituents to evacuate to school campuses nearby for fear of a repeat of the encounters.

Kabalu said the incident was preceded, hours before, by the shooting by a militiaman of a rebel, Ibrahim Kanapia, near the detachment.

Kanapia was riding his motorcycle, along with his wife and a daughter, when a militiaman under Datu Limon, who is the barangay chairman of Dapiawan, shot them with an assault rifle.

Kabalu said Kanapia’s daughter was wounded in the attack.

Ampatuan said members of the MPOC had immediately intervened by restraining the families of the protagonists in the incident, but the MILF rebels in the area started massing around the detachment past 4 p.m. Sunday and simultaneously attacked from different directions.

"There were about a hundred MILF rebels involved in the attack of the detachment manned only by eight militiamen," Ampatuan said.

Ampatuan said the militiamen were forced to retreat and abandon their detachment, which the rebels occupied for several minutes and set on fire.

"The rebels involved in the attack must be censured. Such a maneuver, which was large in scale, was a serious violation of the ceasefire," he said.