Ampatuan militiamen continue shellings

AMPATUAN, Maguindanao , Philippines  – Suspected members of the private militia of the Ampatuan clan shelled the surroundings of this town’s police station and a detachment of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion Tuesday night.

Although no one was killed or wounded in the shelling, the seventh in the past 10 days, the attack forced more residents at the town proper to flee their homes.

Superintendent Alex Lineses, Maguindanao police director, said the attackers would crawl into strategic areas around the town proper, fire their grenade launchers, and then escape to nearby hinterlands.

“They don’t care if they hit their targets or not. It’s very obvious they want to scare the people in the municipality,” Lineses said.

Some of the 50 shoulder-fired rockets and 40-mm grenade projectiles landed near the houses of Mayor Zacaria Sangki and his son, Razul, the vice mayor, who is a key prosecution witness against the Ampatuans in the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people in Barangay Salman this town.

Lineses said investigators are convinced that the attackers were the same ones behind last month’s foiled bombing of a gasoline station owned by the Sangki family.

“They also obviously want to scare registered voters residing in the town proper to unduly disenfranchise them,” Lineses said without elaborating.

There is talk that Tuesday night’s attack could be in retaliation for the arrest the day before of a member of the Ampatuan militia implicated in the massacre.

The suspect, Manaot Dumlah, was cornered after two months of surveillance at his hideout in Barangay Meta, Datu Unsay town.

Dumlah is a known henchman of Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in the massacre.

Dumlah was the known keeper of the ammunition for the firearms of militiamen employed by Ampatuan Jr. before he was detained at the central office of the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila.