Military condemns mutilation of 7 soldiers

COTABATO CITY , Philippines  – The military is ranting on the alleged mutilation by renegade Moro rebels of the seven soldiers killed in running firefights Friday in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

Col. Marlou Salazar, commander of the Army’s 601st Brigade, said the rebels virtually desecrated their subordinates by mutilating their bodies after robbing them of their combat boots, ammunition and other valuables.

Salazar said he is convinced that some of their fatalities were only wounded in the initial exchanges of gunfire, but were eventually finished off with shots in their hearts as shown by powder burns on their chests.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the rebels also blasted the heads of the slain soldiers with shoulder-fire 40 MM grenades.

“Their heads were mutilated beyond recognition. All of their personal belongings were gone, including their combat shoes, wallets and wrist watches,” Ponce said.

Ponce said five of the soldiers killed in Friday’s encounter with MILF rebels in Barangay Bialong, Mamasapano were members of a mechanized armor unit while the rest were riflemen from the 54th and the 75th Batallions.

“Two of them have been brought to their hometowns in Luzon,” Ponce said.

Ponce said the mutilation of the seven soldiers was a repetition of the July 2007 incident in Albarka, Basilan, where MILF guerillas beheaded 10 Marines they have killed in an ambush in a secluded area in the same town.

Salazar said it took them two days to retrieve all the bodies of the soldiers killed in the Bialong encounter because the MILF rebels planted booby traps around them.

He said the same group of renegade guerillas have still been firing mortars at Army detachments near the scene of the encounter until yesterday.

Salazar and Ponce both reiterated that 20 rebels were killed in Friday’s spate of running gunbattles in Barangay Bialong and surrounding areas.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the MILF, said only two guerillas were killed in the ensuing encounters.

Kabalu said the hostilities erupted only after soldiers intruded into a known MILF lair in Barangay Bialong.

President Arroyo was holding a dialogue with local officials at the Maguindanao provincial capitol in nearby Shariff Aguak town while soldiers and MILF rebels were trading shots in Barangay Bialong.

Kabalu was quick to refute the military’s assertion that their guerillas mutilated the remains of the seven soldiers killed in the hostilities.

He said mutilations of bodies of their slain enemies are against the revolutionary policies of the MILF. Friday’s hostilities in Barangay Bialong forced hundreds more of villagers in the area to evacuate to safer grounds for fear of a repeat of the encounters.