3 soldiers, child killed in Marawi attacks

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  – At least three soldiers were killed while 13 others, including three civilians, were wounded in an ambush by suspected followers of a “warlord” in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur last Wednesday night, the military said.

A three-year-old child was also killed when the ambushers fired at a nearby Army detachment, said Col. Daniel Lucero, commander of the Army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade.

Lucero said the soldiers were on board a military vehicle while on a security mission when armed men, said to be close relatives and followers of a warlord, assaulted them at around 9 p.m. Wednesday in the vicinity of the Mindanao State University (MSU), killing three and wounding 10 others.

Lucero said a vehicle carrying civilians that was tailing the military truck was also fired at, leaving three of the passengers wounded.

He said the armed men later attacked the Agus I detachment of the 65th Infantry Battalion, killing the three-year-old child.

“This ambuscade was staged in retaliation to the relentless support of the Army to the police against criminality and the recent security mission in the general voters’ registration that purged the ghost voters in Marawi,” Lucero said.

The listup reduced the number of qualified voters in Marawi from 67,000 to 43,000, Lucero said.

“The active participation of the Army in purging the ghost voters during the (recent) general registration was taken as a threat to their (warlord’s) political existence,” he added.

He said the warlord has also flooded Marawi with false text messages “to demonize the Army in the face of the civilians.”

He said they will file charges against the ambushers before the Department of Justice instead of the local court where the warlord wields influence.

A female Marawi City official, however, said the soldiers were waylaid after conducting a failed raid for illegal drugs on one of the houses in the MSU compound.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the soldiers retaliated by raiding and searching houses, including the residence of Mayor Fahad Salik and his wife, Rasma, an assemblywoman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Salik decried the raid, saying the soldiers had no search warrant and alleging that cash, valuables and jewelry were missing in his house. He said the AK assault rifle seized by the troops is licensed.

The female city official said government troops have set up roadblocks in the city, compounding the tense situation there.

She said soldiers even disarmed two policemen on their way home yesterday morning. – With Jaime Laude, Lino de la Cruz, John Unson, Cecille Suerte Felipe