MILF forces begin pullout from Maguindanao town

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels yesterday started to move out of one of three Maguindanao towns where they have shown force in the past days, the military said.

Col. Ernesto Aradanas, commander of the Army’s 603rd Infantry Brigade, said local political and religious leaders were partly responsible in helping convince the rebels to reposition away from farming communities in South Upi, one of the three towns where they massed up last week, as if preparing for an attack.

Aradanas said military units in the two other towns under threat from MILF forces – North Upi and Datu Blah Sinsuat – were still initiating peaceful means to resolve the tension with the help of local leaders.

Aradanas said members of the MILF’s recalcitrant 105th Base Command, whose leader, Ameril Ombra Kato, carries a P10-million bounty, have been trying to expand their influence over local guerrilla forces in the three towns.

Aradanas said local Muslim religious and political leaders are against any occupation by MILF forces of communities in the three towns, which have remained undisturbed for some time.

“While the 603rd IB is always tactically ready to quell security threats that may arise in any area under its jurisdiction, it will always exhaust peaceful means of addressing security problems, particularly those that affects the safety of innocent non-combatants,” Aradanas told The Star.

On its website, www.luwaran.net, the MILF denied that its forces in the three towns were preparing for an offensive.

MILF deputy information chief Khaled Musa said the reported sightings of MILF guerrillas in the three towns were natural movements of their forces and not meant to scare the villagers.

“We are not building up our forces there. If there are sightings of MILF forces there, those are part of (our) routine activities,” the website quoted Musa as saying.

“They (guerrillas) will not harm people whom they represent and fight for, except when they are attacked by government forces or hostile militias,” Musa said.

While its peace talks with the government collapsed after the botched signing on Aug. 5 last year of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain in Malaysia, the MILF said its forces have still been adhering to the ceasefire.

The MILF said most of the MILF-military encounters since August last year have been precipitated by the military’s intrusion into known guerrilla enclaves covered by the ceasefire under the pretext of running after Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo, another wanted MILF commander whose group operates in Lanao del Norte.