13 MILF guerrillas slain in Cotabato, Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Thirteen Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas were killed while five soldiers were wounded in a series of encounters in the past 24 hours in North Cotabato and Maguindanao, local officials and military sources said.

The running firefights between the MILF and government forces in Maguindanao’s adjoining towns of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Datu Unsay, Guindulungan and Talayan and in Libungan, North Cotabato forced more than 5,000 villagers to evacuate to neutral grounds for fear of getting trapped in the crossfire.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, identified the wounded soldiers as Sgt. Edilberto de la Cruz and Pfcs. Expedito Daso Jr., Alexis Tecson, Reynante Gamol, and Hattam Tayrong.

The wounded soldiers, who all belong to the Army’s 75th Infantry Battalion, and their companions were patrolling Barangay Muti in Guindulungan when the MILF guerillas, positioned at a strategic hill, opened fire, provoking a firefight.

Local officials said nine rebels were killed in the ensuing encounter, which waned only when more Army reinforcements arrived at the scene.

Ponce said the slain rebels were felled by snipers using customized caliber .50 Barret rifles fitted with long-range scopes.

Soldiers also foiled an attempt by MILF rebels to take over three detachments of the Army’s 46th Infantry Battalion in Talayan and Guindulungan towns.

Ponce said the rebels attacked from different directions and pounded the detachments with B-40 anti-tank rockets, 40-mm grenade projectiles, and assault rifles.

Ponce said the evacuees confirmed that two MILF guerrillas, identified only as Karim and Hansari, were killed in the bungled attempts to drive the soldiers away from their detachments.

Ponce said the 6th ID also carried out selective aerial bombardment of strategic hills overlooking portions of the Cotabato-General-Santos Highway that traverses Talayan and Guindulungan to flush out hundreds of MILF rebels who tried to show force along isolated stretches of the thoroughfare.

Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, said most of the bombs dropped by Air Force planes landed on open fields and marshlands.

“It was just a waste of government money, a tactical maneuver in futility,” Kabalu told reporters via a text message.

A two-hour MILF-military encounter also rocked the supposedly peaceful Barangay Toreta in Libungan, North Cotabato yesterday.

Ponce said the hostilities in Barangay Toreta erupted when MILF rebels opened fire on soldiers sent to verify the unusual convergence of the guerrillas there, as if preparing to attack farming villages at the boundary of Libungan and Pigkawayan, also in North Cotabato.

Citing feedback from barangay officials, Ponce said that although outnumbered, the soldiers returned fire and engaged their ambushers, killing a guerrilla named Manibpel Sarip.