Soldiers clash with MNLF; 10 killed

MARAWI CITY – Ten people were killed and four others wounded yesterday as government troops clashed with heavily armed men holed out inside the Marawi City public market.

The gunmen, believed to be former guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), seized the public market on instructions of Gov. Nur Misuari of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, an ARMM police official said.

"According to our investigators, Midtumara Sidik, the MNLF commander (leading the gunmen) has been claiming that he had been instructed by Governor Misuari to help the police and the military in their law enforcement activities so they occupied three areas brandishing their firearms," Senior Superintendent Omar Ali, ARMM police operations chief, said.

The STAR tried but failed to reach for comment yesterday Misuari’s spokesman, Mahendra Madjilon, chief of the ARMM Bureau of Public Information.

Misuari has been in the Middle East for the past three weeks.

However, military sources said the gunmen were disgruntled MNLF guerrillas who wanted to set up an MNLF office in Marawi City.

At Malacañang, Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said President Arroyo called an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday after learning of the standoff in Marawi between government troops and the so-called MNLF "lost command."

Col. Antonio Seville, spokesman for the Army’s 401st Infantry Brigade, said the four dead civilians were caught in the crossfire. The six others killed were soldiers.

Three soldiers and a civilian were wounded, he added.

An infantry battalion surrounded a three-story building in downtown Marawi at noon after flushing out about 30 "lost command" guerrillas from a nearby neighborhood.

A group of sultans and Muslim elders is negotiating for the peaceful surrender of the 20 former MNLF guerrillas, who continued to occupy the public market as of presstime last night.

At least a dozen gunmen were reported to have occupied the building, which was filled with textile stalls, and several blocks were evacuated in the heart of the city.

Seville said some 150 soldiers, backed by two armored personnel carriers, massed outside, then retook the first two floors and part of the third, where gunmen hid in rooms and bunkers.

"This is a slow and careful operation because the gunmen were able to occupy fortified positions," he said.

Ali said Sidik, who is reportedly among a dozen Maranaw members of the MNLF loyal to Misuari, and his men had been roaming downtown Marawi City carrying high-powered firearms until policemen stopped them.

"And they opened fire on soldiers and policemen dispatched to disperse them peacefully," he said.

The MNLF is now led by the so-called Council of 15, which is comprised of Misuari’s core followers, among them Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema and Sulu Gov. Yosoph Jikiri.

Seville said the intense firefight slowed to sporadic shots and grenade bursts by midday, and Army and police troops waited for noon Islamic prayers to end before making the final assault.

Seville said soldiers first came under fire while raiding several houses to confiscate weapons from suspected former members of the MNLF.

"That gunbattle sparked a fire that burned two houses occupied by MNLF gunmen," he said. "(The gunmen) are believed to have torched the second floor of a building at the market."

Windows were shattered and the facade of the building occupied by the gunmen bore bullet scars as smoke billowed from five burning huts from atop the building, Seville added.

Abdurahman Jamasali, an MNLF leader who heads a ceasefire monitoring group set up under the 1996 government-MNLF peace agreement, told reporters yesterday the MNLF will protest the military action. – Roel Pareño, Lino dela Cruz, Paolo Romero